Janelle Randazza - Go Tweet Yourself: 365 Reasons Why Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and Other Social Networking Sites Suck

GO
TWEET
YOURSELF

365 Reasons Why Twitter, Facebook, MySpace,
and Other Social Networking Sites Suck

janelle randazza

Copyright 2009 by F+W Media, Inc.
All rights reserved.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

Published by
Adams Media, a division of F+W Media, Inc.
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ISBN-10: 1-4405-0366-4
ISBN-13: 978-1-4405-0366-5
eISBN: 978-1-4405-1351-0

Printed in the United States of America.

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Acknowledgments

Many thanks to those who selflessly and shamelessly aired their grievances about social networking (among other things), and helped keep me good and cynical when my predisposition toward optimism threatened the completion of this book. In no particular order, my gratitude goes out to: Mel and Amber Georgakopoulos, Burke Sampson, Stephanie Cornell, Amy Kucharik, Amy Mees, Emily Beaver, Liz Polay-Wettengal, Marya Emdot Figueroa, Chris Marstall, John Cotter, Elisa Gabbert, Paul McEvoy, Ed Meagher, Brigid Carroll Casellini, Andy Stochansky, Lisa Whynott, Keith Hastings, Betsy Doily Foley, Carlos Arboleda, Alicia Demirjian, Andy Fenenbock, Kevin McCarthy, Sara Ulnet, Chad and Kristina Harter Carlberg, Molly Scannell, Shauna Peck Slome, and Matthew Phillion. Many of you offered up your own social networking nightmares, allowing me to pass them off as my own in this book; Im forever indebted to you. Very special thanks to Liam King; my parents John and Joanne, who did their best to brainstorm ideas despite rarely logging in to their shared Facebook account and being absolutely certain it is called Faceplace; and my brother Marc John Randazza. Your discontent is an inspiration, my dear brother.

Thank you to my blindingly talented editor, Wendy Simard. When the entire world gave me nothing but cricket chirps, your gleeful laughter at my sick sense of humor got me through. Thank you for your tireless and creative work on this project, and for everything else, my dear friend. Thanks to everyone else at Adams Media who made this book possible, especially publisher Karen Cooper, Brendan ONeill, and designer Elisabeth Lariviere.

For Niamh Antoinette Sheedy and Natalia Antoinette Randazza: My favorite little girls on the planet. Social networking really can suck but you two never cease to rule.

Contents

PART 1
TWITTER: THE WHOLE WORLD,
GONE TO THE BIRDS

PART 2
FACEBOK: A FACE
ONLY A MOTHER COULD LOVE

PART 3
EVERYTHING ELSE:
THE ONLINE OUTCASTS

Introduction

I hope youre sitting down as you read this, because Im about to deliver a shock of biblical proportions. No one cares if youre going for a walk, eating lunch, playing the banjo, or taking a nap. And we care even less if you tell us in a mere 140 characters. Somewhere between the time Facebook became a club even Great-Aunt Suzy wanted membership in and Twitter went pandemic, we began to exalt the mundane and worship the inane.

We have entered a new age of excess, only with the worlds economy in dumps were turning toward an overabundance of blather, in the form of Insipid Status Update, over-posting of photos, over-liking of posts, and self-important drivel about what color socks we plan to wear and what brand of ketchup we prefer on our fries. The more we talk, the less we listen and the more Facebook friends, Twitter followers, and LinkedIn connections we acquire the greater the chance that any sliver of meaningful contact we could forge will get lost in the din of nudges, pokes, prods, and virtual two-steps.

Social networking has become a game that no one can win as we try to eek an iota of meaning from where there is none through silly status posts, and insincere cyber gift-giving.

Lets be perfectly clear people, I dont want a virtual drink, hug, or pet pterodactyl, nor do I want social interactions that are limited to 140 characters and neither should you! Hopefully the following 365 reasons will convince you that social networking is akin to a zombie invasion that is eating all of our brains, leaving us as vapid nodes who somehow believe there is importance in telling the world were buying a carton of milk.

Consider it my mission to motivate (or shame) you into getting a lifea real life, not the virtual variety. If that doesnt work, at the very least youll have something to tweet about tomorrow.

PART 1
TWITTER:
THE WHOLE
WORLD, GONE
TO THE BIRDS

Everybody gets so much information
all day long that they lose their
common sense.

-Gertrude Stein

Chapter 1
You Are What You Tweet

1 > Thought blogs were self-indulgent? Try microblogging!

If a tweet goes out in a forest, and no one sees it, does it make a sound? When your thoughts or tweets or twitsor whatever you want to call them get pushed further and further down your friends update feed with each passing second, its not connecting you to anyone. Youre just yammering to yourself and everyone is so preoccupied with the sound of their own tweets that they dont care what you have to sayyoure in a virtual middle school bathroom and youre surrounded by self-absorbed cheerleaders. Its as if all this tweeting is a territorial call, as opposed to a matingor friendshipcall.

You know who the most social of all birds are? Penguins. Thats right. Why is that? Because penguins know how to hang, how to take time out to share a fishand how to listen. No obsessive tweeting goes on in Antarctica. We could learn a thing or two from a penguin.

Twit Lingo
Twitterize (verb): Using peer pressure to convert a new Twitter user into a Twit.

2 > The anatomy of a Twit

I didnt think birds got rabies, but Twitter has proven science wrong. Get a die-hard Twit in a room and shell start pecking you on the skull about the importance of Twitter like a raccoon that wants your lunch or a Jehovahs Witness dead set on saving your soul. There is no stopping these Twits. They bang on your door and damn you to hell if you dont convert to their cult. I know that when we refuse to believe in Twitter the terrorists win, but Twitter was founded in 2006; if 60 percent of its users