Don’t spout nothingness. Nobody cares.
Posted Saturday, May 23rd, 2009 9:00 am by Dave Moyer
“Blog” is a MAJOR buzz-word. So is “Twitter”. “Podcast”. As technologies begin to grow into the average users’ vocabularies, lots of people start to jump on the “Me Too!!!” bandwagon. We’ve seen it with all sorts of technologies, and it’s not going away.
I’m proud to present to you a sample “Me Too” thought train, starring Mr, Mrs, or Ms Generic User, henceforth known as MMOMGU. (Hey, I have to be politically correct, right?) This involves Twitter, the latest “me too” on the web.
MMOMGU sees Twitter on Oprah, or reads about this EXCITING NEW technology (which, by the way, came out over three years ago) in their newspaper’s oh-so-up-to-date-technology section.
MMOMGU: Ooh! Shiny.
MMOMGU sees that people use Twitter. And if people (especially Oprah) use Twitter, then MMOMGU must use it also. Now, it is important to acknowledge that MMOMGU doesn’t really understand Twitter at all, but that doesn’t really cross their mind quite yet.
MMOMGU: La la la… Twitter.com.
MMOMGU signs up for a Twitter account, failing to change their avatar from the default picture, but changing their background neon green, their sidebar dark black, and their main text yellow on a white background. Then, the fateful moment: MMOMGU posts their first tweet.
MMOMGU (in tweet form): OK I DONT REALLY GETTHIS TWITTER THING SOMEONE HELP ME?!?!??????!?!!!!1
MMOMGU has followed Ashton Kutcher, CNN Breaking News, Britney Spears, and Al Gore. However, they do not understand why nobody has replied.
MMOMGU (in tweet form): HELLOOOOOO????
MMOMGU (out loud now): OK, what’s the point of this?
MMOMGU does not realize that they currently have one follower: “MakeMoneezEZ”, who, contrary to popular belief, is a robot who is not showing much interest in helping them understand Twitter. MMOMGU has a few more tweets before going dormant:
MMOMGU (in tweet form): lol
MMOMGU (in tweet form): lolol
MMOMGU (in tweet form): @britneyspears HEY BRITNEY I LOVE YOU SO MUCH WHY ARENT U FOLLOWIN ME YOU SHOULD FOLLOW ME nOW k???
MMOMGU doesn’t login again for weeks.
And… scene.
You see, MMOMGU really has no idea what Twitter is all about. They joined for the buzz value, and absolutely nothing more. My question to the MMOMGUs of the world: Why are you joining sites that you don’t understand? Why are you becoming part of a medium to say something when you have nothing to say?
Blogging, podcasting, Twitter, radio, TV, newspapers, whatever. A friend of mine who’s a complete radio veteran puts it perfectly: “You need to have something to say and you need to know how to say it.” If you don’t, you’re wasting my time and your own.
Don’t sit there and spout nothingness because you feel that you need to spout something. If you don’t have something to say, don’t try. People know. They follow the people who say things that they will care about, and they unfollow the people who don’t.
Spout your passion. Spout what you know, spout what only you can spout in the way that only you can spout it. And if you can’t, don’t try. It’s more obvious than you might think.
