butterbeep

word nausea

We knew it was coming. Twitter has hit the mainstream. I use twitter. I think it is a very powerful part of my communications toolkit. I don’t care what it’s called. When tokbox came along and afforded me a more immediate way of communicationg via video I found I stopped using seesmic almost entirely without blinking.

With this mainstream hit, several phenomena are emerging. Working as I do in the technological sphere, the word twitter or any number of words beginning with tw are hitting my ears like frenzied birds disappearing into the engines of a 747 with alarming frequency. As a writer and student of language I initially enjoyed the inventiveness but now it is becoming word nausea.

Let’s calm it down. There is enough noise on the web. It’s making me sick. I don’t care about twitter beyond the power it gives me to communicate and filter information. I don’t rave on about email and invent a new app every day that starts with an e. Just because I have legs and see the miracle in being able to move around on them doesn’t mean I mention my legs in every sentence.

Yes, it is immensely exciting, but let’s not lose sight of what it is. A tool. A revolutionary communication mechanism. A way of bringing like-minded people together in a unique and vibrant way. Unchecked and untrammelled, an endless sub-joycean stream of banal fuzz and fizz.

Want a bit of breathing space? identi.ca is still there. Audioboo is waiting. Tokbox is there for the videophiles.

At SXSW I spoke to an older lady working on the front desk of the conference centre who told me she didn’t use twitter at all. She liked plurk. She found the tool that was right for her. She was immune to the plague.

I have four twitter accounts at the moment:

buddhamagnet (me)

butterbeep (my work)

waltermash (part of a literary experiment)

austin_powered (use while I was in Texas)

…and it will remain part of my wordsuite for years to come, long after the name has been subsumed into the ether and this form of communication becomes as familiar and invisible as email.

Just saying…