SuperNews: Twouble with Twitters

Brent of Current told me that SuperNews, (an "animated series about the news, technology, pop culture," is premiering on Current on Friday. Each half-hour episode "is going to include very timely/topical brand new piece of animation that the team produces each week." Here's a teaser, called "Twouble with Twitters."

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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Uncle_Max

You could probably use most of the points made in this video to argue against the entirety of the internet. Aren’t we all just shouting into the void, hoping to win some kind of award for wittiness?

And as others have said, Twitter’s usefulness depends on how you use it. If you have enough friends who use it and live nearby, it’s much easier to say that you’re going to be someplace and invite others to join you than to call a bunch of people individually. Or, if you have friends who live further away, it’s a bit of a way to keep in contact and see how they’re doing in between full-length phone or online conversations.

Then there are the people mentioned before, like Neil Gaiman, John Hodgman, John Cleese, my local news channel, and others who have interesting or informative tweets.

Lastly, it’s a pretty good way to follow breaking news stories from the point of view of people on the scene. The terrorist attacks in India were quite extensively tweeted about, as were other news stories. Sometimes it’s nice to get the unfiltered reaction to a story.

But no, really, it’s all just people saying “Eating Mac & Cheese on the couch” all day long. Well done, insightful SuperNews team.
mdh

Danforth, nothing in my lifetime has so illuminated the meanings of the words “friend” and “twit” quite as efficiently as Facebook and Twitter have.

Take that as you will.
Doran

If there was a shark out there, Twitter jumped it within the last couple weeks.
Blue

I was a hater.

I thought Twitter was pretty stupid, until I got a desktop app for it and started following people I was interested in. Now … constant stream of pop-ups with *possibly* interesting things that I might (or might not) want to look into, or be amused by.

If you’re following people who share things like ‘I’m scratching my arse. It feels really good,’ then you have no one to blame but yourselves. Consider using some discretion and following people you might be interested in, instead.

Less demanding than IM. Easier than email. One of the best things to happen to the internet in a while.
Anonymous

So good, so true!

–Nick Kavassalis
David

Pure pwnage.
Manooshi

I thought Twitter jumped the shark upon it’s narcissistic inception.

But then I suddenly had a paper on Educational theories to do today… and dammit, if I can’t stand to write one more Ed. theory paper… and so, BOOM! Joined Twitter today and officially zombified myself out trying to figure out who’s on it, who’s not. I was surprised right away at discovering which of my friends are actually on it, afterall. Not who I expected, to say the least.

But, hey! I got nothing accomplished. My paper still awaits me. So my goal of procrastination via ‘micro-blogging’ was totally accomplished. Thanks, Twitter. :(
Nin Harris

Ohnoez. Now there’s a “twitter-sphere”. Soon they’ll have to add other twitteriffic terms into dictionaries. Oh dear.
Merrik

Although I do enjoy updates from NASA and a few select bands about somewhat meaningful things like shuttle launches, news articles, and upcoming shows, I’m pretty sure Twitter as a micro-blogging and social networking tool jumped the proverbial shark the moment it came to exist (damn you, Manooshi, for being quicker on the draw). If it weren’t for bands, organizations, and sweet deals from Amazon, Twitter would really just be Facebook statuses. Except even less meaningless due to their higher frequency. On the upside, though, xkcd will probably derive some hilarity from it…

More to the point, though, this news show looks pretty hilarious.
jonathan_v

brilliant.
Takuan

“twitter-canopy”
sirk

After just listening to twit with Leo Laporte, 75% was only about twitter, this hit the spot! Seems like a pretty funny show, maybe I should jockey some podcasts around and make room for this one. Thanks! Sorry, that was more than 140 characters… (insert mandatory tinyurl here)
Merrik

*…even more meaningless…
Manooshi

@#5 Merrik: Hey, dude, I was just going with what “#1 Doran” already observed. So, s/he had the quicker draw, actually. IMHO.

Anyway, I just ‘tweeted’ the link to this killer Boing Boing post, and noticed how it automatically converted into a tiny URL as “#8 Sirk” mentioned would be the case. Damn you, Twitter! *shakes fist up in the air*
mgfarrelly

It seems like every new web innovation (myspace, facebook and now twitter) goes through a phase where people forget that content trumps all.

Neil Gaiman, John Hodgemen, Stephen Fry, My local NPR, Colonel Tribune, all great twitter users to follow and peek in on due to their content.
Secret_Life_of_Plants

I thought this was about the horrible hatred of the Facebook redesign…something like 300,000 letters / emails against the Twitterizing of FB since Friday !
AnjaFlower

I honestly don’t see what the big scary deal is about Twitter. It’s just a form of lightweight social connectivity, mild chit-chat via the Internet. Nothing especially scary or big-dealy about that.
Manooshi

#11 MgFarrelly: valid point about content. The daily Amazon MP3 deals seem cool, too, as “#5 Merrik” pointed out.
torrissey

SuperNews has been regularly airing on Current for over two years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperNews!
allenbukoff

First of all the phrase “jumped the shark” has jumped the shark.

This is really a dumb sneering video. It presents a uneducated stereotype of Twitter that believes Twitter/users are venal and stupid. I thought Twitter was some dumb adolescent fetish, too, a year ago–set up an account, tried it out, nothing, “it’s stupid.” I recently went back and gave it a second look (actually spent a lot of time trying to figure out why it keeps growing and why even sane people are getting excited). You know what. The reason Twitter is a next big thing is NOT because people are broadcasting what they are doing/feeling. It’s because many smart people are condensing ideas, insights, and discoveries into very efficient little messages (with much HIGHER signal-to-noise ratios than blog posts and emails). Many people are filtering the internet, findings interesting stuff, and passing it along with links in their Twitter messages. Twitter is the best thing I’ve found since Boing Boing for finding lots of new stuff & stuff I like. JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN’T MAKE IT WORK FOR YOU…CAN’T FIND INTERESTING & VALUABLE PEOPLE TO FOLLOW…don’t want to spend the time to find the magic of Twitter, doesn’t mean you should sneer at Twitter.

I don’t think Twitter is a fad. I don’t think it’s going away. I think this video is, however.
Manooshi

The actor, Christopher Walken’s Twitter is pretty funny to follow:

http://twitter.com/cwalken

And here’s the link for the daily Amazon MP3 deals:

http://twitter.com/amazonmp3
robulus

Hey Allen, how about this:

Twitter = economical distribution of ideas. Criticism unfounded.
Johnny Cat

awesome advice, AllenBukoff. I’ll keep that in mind.
MikeMoore

@16
“First of all the phrase “jumped the shark” has jumped the shark.”

Brilliant! (and I agree with you)

However, the use of hyperbolic recursive metaphors scares me…who knows what may happen.
pork musket

@16 is right. The new term is nuking the fridge.
mdh

Aren’t we all just shouting into the void, hoping to win some kind of award for wittiness?

Nah. I’m just shouting at the zeitgeist, while hoping it keeps ignoring me.
GeekMan

I second Pork Musket’s suggestion.

Though I did love that scene. :}
allenbukoff

Please replace my post #16 with #18. I am embarrassed at being beaten on my own turf like this. Eliminating post #16 will also eliminate the problem of the “hyperbolic recursive metaphor” referred to in #20. For this I am also embarrassed.

This is a tough place to play.
Manooshi

@Geekman:

Yeah, man! I’ve been a fan of the Fonz since forever. Bummer that peeps on teh nets consider that phrase out-dated already.

But ‘nuking the fridge’ is pretty funny. What is the cultural meme for which it originates?
mstoddard

Great video. As much of a time burgler Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc. are I can’t help but be reminded of “the power of organizing without organizations,” as Clay Shirky so eloquently puts it.

True there’s a lot of mindless drivel out there, but the small percentage of worthwhile tasks that can/do get accomplished via networks like Twitter is astounding.

Still, Twitter has zero appeal to me.
Manooshi

Oh. Nevermind:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=nuke+the+fridge
robulus

Allen, dude, don’t be embarrassed. I actually bothered to go and check out Twitter based on your comment.

Just a tiny bit ironic… (c;
mycroftb

Interesting. I just posted the URL for this video to my twitter account, and a few minutes later it was removed without any kind of notice.

I don’t want to be too paranoid over net censorship. Y’know, hanlon’s razor and all. Maybe there was a flood of people posting the same thing and they thought it was spam? Maybe because I’ve been critical of Twitter they removed it, thinking I was trolling?

I opened a support request inquiring as to the reasons behind the deletion, and why it was done silently.
scothampton

ohai. iz anyone twittering this post?!

herez yer http://tinyurl.com/supernews

no doubt reality will soon fold in upon itself in an escher-ific meta mÃ©lange of social webbyness.

http://twitter.com/shamptonian
Anonymous

The real point to this video is that you shouldn’t use Twitter for pointless tweeting. And you shouldn’t be addicted to it. If you have something meaningful to tweet then do so. Just don’t live your life on Twitter.
courtenaybird

Thank you. That was wonderful…. per usual on BB.
Lauren O

Well, not that Robulus won the Internet, anything the rest of us say is going to be pretty pointless, but…

It was a pretty funny video with pretty decent animation, despite the fact that I have a burgeoning crush on Twitter and plan on signing up for one in the next few weeks. I’ll definitely watch the next one in the series in hopes that it’s more in line with my personal feelings about irrelevant e-phenomena.
Ansanter

If South Park was still as relevant as SuperNews is now I would still be watching it. Instead it has regressed to total potty humour. This shall be a suitable replacement.
IWood

#17 posted by Manooshi:

The actor, Christopher Walken’s Twitter is pretty funny to follow:

That’s not the actor, it’s a user account that anyone can use, created by Daren Bauman at clusterflock.

But that makes it even more interesting to follow…anonymous people tweeting under Chris Walken’s name about random things. A composite pseudocelebrity!

I follow people who do interesting or amusing things with 140 characters (Neil Gaiman, Warren Ellis, Stephen Fry, Eddie Izzard, John Cleese, etc.) For my part, I have my last five tweets displayed on my blog, so I tend to tell odd stories that fit into five 140-character installments throughout the day. If that’s interesting to you, yay. If not, big world out there, also yay.

Twitter’s what you make of it, unless you’re relying on other people to make something out of it for you, in which case you’re on your own.
mdh

Asanter @ 31 – I firmly believe Matt and Trey are trying VERY HARD to get fired, and have been for about 5 years. They’re phoning in the tabloid coverage of the shark jump at this point.
Anonymous

Allen…when you wrote venal, I think you meant banal. Venal means something is capable of being bought or sold, or is associated with corruption and bribery. Doesn’t seem terribly relevant.
I’ll get off my vocab Nazi soap box now…
Anonymous

That so nailed it! I am addicted and it you want to follow me following this I am @voisgary
overunger

” Woah, did it just click?” YES!!! YES IT CLICKED ALREADY!!! SHUT UUUUPPP!!! SHUT THE F*** UUPP!!!

GODDAMNIT VERIZON!!!! I swear, that ad and the f***ing Honda Civic ad with the musical highway are driving me insane!!
I just need to watch some TikiBar and have a drink…

Oh, Lala…sigh….
glittertrash

When I first joined Twitter I thought, eh, what’s different about this than your average late-90′s IRC channel?

But as someone said above, it’s a whole lot of people filtering the internet for me, and me filtering the internet for them. Which is sometimes the world’s greatest timewaster, and sometimes leads me to find incredibly delightful things.

It’s also the only way I can possibly imagine ever having a direct conversation with Neil Gaiman about a New York drag performer, so you know, it has perks.
Danforth

For full disclosure, I applied for a job at Supernews last week and didn’t get it. Having said that:

This cartoon gets twitter all wrong. The idea that twitter is nothing but self-involved, boring people tweeting about what they ate for lunch is false. I’m not going to spend time enumerating all the ways twitter is handy and helpful and fun; it’s not up to me to convince anyone to be on twitter.

But this cartoon is yet ANOTHER media group bagging on twitter and its users for being a bunch of narcissistic hipsters who want attention from people who aren’t their “real friends.” Twitter isn’t REQUIRED. If you don’t want to be on twitter, don’t be. Stay off.

I’ll go out on a limb and say I LIKE knowing what my friends had for lunch. Is that so terribly wrong? That I might actually want to know what my friends are doing? Whether it’s a link to something interesting, someone’s job, a clever observation, or a funny joke? I find twitter useful and easy for all sorts of brief communications with people I know in real life, or for getting updates from the creative people I follow. Sue me.

The twitter backlash annoys me because I know by Christmas, every naysayer out there will be on twitter and loving it. Just like every whiny groaner who couldn’t be bothered to learn how to text, use MySpace or Facebook.