This constant review of social media sites moves into an area of how we as cultures begin to communicate with each other and how these different types of media begin to influence how we can and do communicate.
The next platform of social media that will be reviewed briefly is twitter. This is a platform that is known for communicating statuses or ideas or comments or virtually whatever in 140 characters or less.
This type of platform, which as explained from a linguistics friend of mine, moves into meta-linguistics, since the hashtag tagging gives the ability to comment on what you just wrote. Usually we are not able to do that in speech. This combines the loose method of speech with a critical or commentary nature. A following portion of this blog will be written in the twitter style, but not one the platform itself. There is also my blog commnetary in the brackets.
All of the comments are written by the twitter handle (the name of the twitter microblog you create) @[thenameyouwant].
Imagine a blog entirely of making fun of a self-derived definition. the official blog of the octothorpe: @octothorpe.
the hashtag is such a wierd way of doing things and why hashtag? #bringbackoctothorpe #octotherp
the octothorpe is a surveying sign. what next a pound sign? reinventing is difficult. #theoriginaloctothorpe #newyearresolutions
Now this is just getting silly. I have true facts to get back to about my existence. #truefactsabouttheoctothorpe
[from another twitter account, lets say, @poundsigncousins] Hey @octothorpe, what is a fact? #truefactsabouttheoctothorpe
[@octothorpe responds with a fact] @poundsigncousin, a traditional symbol for village: eight fields around a central square. #truefactsabouttheoctothorpe
[then another person chimes in, @numbersign] RT @octothorpe: @poundsigncousin, a traditional symbol for village: eight fields around a central square, #justreadwikipedia #copypaste
So what do we see about the past series of comments, some of the shorthand and other nomenclature of communicating in the twitterverse? While this series of fake tweets is a joke, the some processes for actually tweeting are used.
The first tweet comments on the fact that the hashtag name is used for the same symbol as the octothorpe. This is trivia and trivial, but it shows how the ability to tweet also gives a immediate ability to critically analyze the tweet at hand.
“@octothorpe”s next tweet brings up the fact that there are even more names that can be used, then comments that he is the first of the bunch (regardless of this being true or not) and then compares this to the idea of being a new year’s resolution since people try to re-invent themselves at the beginning of a year.
Then, @octothorpe makes a joke about true facts about the octothorpe, making a reference to another type of social media, youtube (this is an inside joke between octothorpe and his followers). And can be found here about the Mantis Shrimp.
Next, @octothorpe posts fact, but someone knows its copied from Wikipedia and calls him out on it. Using the RT, or re-tweet nomenclature to show its a copied tweet sent out again to the people who might follow him, but not @octothorpe. Also, when tweets have a user’s handle in the text it makes sure that person sees the tweet. This is kind of similar to saying “Hey. You.”, it just gets that person’s attention.
This is a little about how twitter can work. One thing I will say is that, like all of the other platforms I have used, it is important to understand that information must be verified before completely believing something, and that negative content is possible.
Thankfully, this is just an example of the octothorpe. #letmeexplainyouathing.
Next week: Facebook.