The Narrative of Twitter
Here’s a tweet from the World’s Most Powerful Man talking about same-sex marriage.
By the way, this tweet is kinda stupid. He’s quoting himself from his own account.
And here’s a tweet from a squirrel.
Saying Twitter is all about real time isn’t enough. Not because Twitter isn’t all about real time, everything is about real time nowadays. People actively forget who they were 3 years ago because they were wearing cargo pants. What makes Twitter a place where people actively participate is something else: horizontality.
Both those tweets are the same size in your timeline. And by size I mean everything (width, height and character limit). That’s what makes Twitter a place for debate. As long as you’re following me and Obama at the same time, we can have a debate whether he likes it or not. But obviously Twitter isn’t that famous for being the place where Obama goes to argue about the future of the Free World with angsty millenials.
Within this spatial democracy we are able to impact people’s mind and choices. Or not. Actually, mostly not. And that’s where Twitter’s reality distortion field comes into play. Saying you’re getting the same space as Obama in my timeline is like saying Beyonce’s day has the same 24-hours as yours. And that’s a fallacy.
There are three factors that can render horizontality useless.
- Reach.
- Credibility.
- Timing.
You can go now if you’re tired of reading and don’t need a cynical explanation about these things above 140 characters.
Let’s star by reach. You’re likely not being followed by enough people to actually get a discussion going. You’re basically raw data in some sentiment analysis test from a Grad CS student somewhere in Germany. Unless you’re Kanye, who gets +100k RTs for a wedding picture. Truth is, you don’t have much of a responsibility about what you say. At least not as much as someone with a larger audience has.
And even if there’s people following you, you need to have some kind of expertise regarding what you’re talking about. @charliesheen has around 11 million followers, but he’s not turning a tide any time soon if he starts talking about Crimea. He has no street cred in Crimea, the only Russian thing Sheen knows something about is Russian Vodka or Russian prostitutes. Same thing as Mickey Rourke wearing shirts of Vladimir Putin or Dennis Rodman befriending North Korean Dictators. These guys are famous, but that doesn’t mean their influence covers the intrinsic nuts and bolts of politics or any other aspect in which they participate without the appropriate knowledge or experience.
And even if these Hollywood burned-out-40-something drug addicts happen to be agents of change in Crimea, Crimea is like a million years old in Internet Time. Basically, people are more susceptible to a change of heart when an issue is at a turning point. And that’s why Twitter works so well when it comes to live events. Unless your tweet was über famous and surfaced across more persistent media, it doesn’t event exist. Timing is everything. Otherwise people are just skimming through your opinion.
Horizontality is an illusion, a mind trick that fuels discussions, feeds Internet trolls and keeps us up-to-date with most recent events. We all think we have a voice, and we do, it’s just that we’re not as loud as we think. Because when it comes to Twitter, size doesn’t matter.
Originally published at www.invisiblebridg.es.
