The Dumbest Uses of Twitter

Kanye West gifted the world last week with an 86-Tweet-long monologue, using the social networking platform that is most commonly used to condense and shorten thoughts, news and culture as a soap box instead for a rambling and disjointed (but truly amazing) stream-of-consciousness dispatch about his life, the history of his passion for fashion, his new company named after his mother, and how to change the world, Kanye-style.

Some highlights:

@kanyewest: I remember being five years old picking and my mother taking me with her shopping at the discount fur spots.

She said I would always point to the most expensive furs even as a child. LOL

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I have started a new company and I’m so excited about the name… it’s got the best name ever or all companies of all time!!!…

The name of the company is DONDA

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Good logic tells me smile Kanye… the world likes you again… red or blue pill? Aaaaand Swallow lol

Being a celebrity has afforded me many opportunities but has also boxed me in creatively.

…the teachers said I couldn’t focus… I used to get kicked out of class for bringing dirty mags and drawing Nikeys in 4th grade

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We can collectively effect the world through design. We need to pick up where steve jobs left off

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I know this is not a rapper thing to say but I haven’t bought a new car or piece of jewelry in about 2 years…

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Because his epic appeared on Twitter, and since it was typed by Kanye, these tidbits aren’t exactly new news. It’s also not news that Twitter has proven a very useful tool for celebrities, businesses and individuals alike, fostering awareness of some kind from the outside world to whatever it is they do.

However, Twitter would appear, in all of its simplicity, to be the social media site most frequently abused by its users. Maybe that’s because it’s much easier to Tweet than update your wall, or maybe it just seems that was because Twitter is more public than Facebook. This is not to say that Kanye is abusive (though but his posts inspired us to guess at what might be the most irresponsible ways to use Twitter (hint: an 86-Tweet speech is not one of them). Here are some things we came up with:

1. POSTING IN ALL CAPS. UNLESS YOU ARE KANYE.
2. No one needs to know that you just listened to every Pantera album in a row.
3. Beliebers. In general. #justsayin.
4. The Mime. @TheMime posted ellipses once every two weeks. While kind of hilarious, his 22,000 followers have no excuse, this is such a waste.
5. If you are famous in any sense of the word, and especially if you are a politician, avoid sending photos of your package to anyone. Ask @RepWeiner .
6. While writing fiction over Twitter was culturally interesting for a time, Twitter has evolved past this more experimental stage. @George9Writer wrote one of the first Twitter novels under the #Bikerdude. Think that people aren’t still doing this? @John_Wray has been tweeting from the POV of a character cut out from his novel, named Citizen, for the past 2 years.
7. One of the dumbest uses of Twitter it to ask a celebrity for a Retweet. YO! @KimKardashian Can I get a RT?!
8. Tweeting your status on a Twitter game. Most people, even those who play, don’t care how many ninjas you have assassinated that day. And, now everyone knows how you spend your time.
9. Pet accounts. @sockington the cat has 1.5 million followers, and Sockington himself follows almost 900 other pet accounts. They have virtual play dates, bitter rivalries, everything a bored human would think of. So sad.
10. Do not post to Twitter if you are not Kanye West. He will always be better than you at this, Twitter was made for him.

Twitter has served a lot of people well. The potential to share, connect and listen to the world around us is limitless. But there is a right and wrong way to use everything, especially in a time when the line between productive and shameless self-promotion is so thin and when with a click of a button your 140 character musings are automatically part of the national archives. So think before you click. Unless you are Kanye.

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