Thursday, June 9, 2011

TWIOT: Random Musings

A bit more in depth and philosophical than the "random thoughts" posts...
Twitter is a meritocracy, folks

- I like Twitter, and I like it when people follow me on it. I link every TWB post on it (as well as Facebook), so yeah, if you follow me on it, then you see every blog post around the time that it posts. Granted, I want to have as many Twitter followers as possible. However, I'm selfish and possibly delusional. I want all my followers to be cool, to be folks that WANT to follow me. I'd rather have 20 followers who read and appreciate TWB and who interact with me in a civil way than have 20,000 people who ignore my posts or are spam bots or mindless celebrity groupie wannabes. If you want to follow me, I want it to be because you want to follow me, not because of some fake sense of decorum.

That's why this "Team Follow Back" hashtag is so offensive to me. For one, it's basically begging for followers, which I think is just pathetic anyway. But I follow people based on how interesting I find them or if I know them and am cool with them. How arrogant must you be to think that I'd find you cool just because you follow me on Twitter? You boosted my follower count, great, but why should I do the same? Do you have anything good to say? Do you write an insightful blog that I might like? Or are your tweets consisting mostly of "Hey can I get a follow back?" or some other insipid bullshit?

Hell, pandering for followers is also a great way to get me to unfollow you if I already do. It's just unbecoming. Twitter isn't high school. Let's stop treating it as such, okay?

- One politician tweeted pictures of his junk to a coed, with the scandal breaking WHILE his wife was pregnant. Another used her media platform to spew blatant lies about the history of this country in order for personal gain. Can you guess which one is getting more media attention? IF you answered the former, you're correct, and you have your finger on the pulse of what's wrong with the coverage of American politics today.

Granted, I'm not advocating that our elected officials act like they're in college. Because they're our leaders, they need to be held to a higher standard, and I get that. Anthony Weiner showed incredibly poor judgment at the very least when he sent those photos and then lied about it on top of that. He deserves public censure, and if he resigned over it, I wouldn't be up in arms about it, despite the fact that hey, Americans could stand to lighten up a bit about sex and the private lives of individuals. However, what really ticks me off about all this is the fact that Sarah Palin's total bungling of the history behind Paul Revere's ride for her own political gain is being relatively ignored.

I mean, this isn't the first time she's shown a patent disregard for the history of our nation to make a confused, neocon talking point. She's pandering to the lowest common denominator and being met with rousing cheers. Isn't that what we DON'T want in people who are trying to sell themselves as legitimate candidates for the highest office in the land?

Don't get me wrong. This isn't a "Weiner is good, Palin is bad" post. Both deserve scorn for their misdeeds given the public nature of them and such. However, why is only one getting this intense scrutiny? If Palin wins the Presidency in 2012 based on half-truths, spin and borderline slander, then maybe we should start holding the media responsible for not putting more of a microscope on the dumb shit people say, liberal or conservative.

- Finally, on a lighter note, Bill Simmons and Chuck Klosterman launched Grantland this week, as I noted in the links dump yesterday. The concept is writing about sports at a higher level than what you'd find at ESPN with an ear towards bringing more unknown writers to ply their trade. I have to say, this sounds like an eerily familiar idea... oh yeah, it's what we set out at Fair to Flair to do with wrestling journalism and writing. Now, I'm not saying Simmons ripped us off at all. Actually, I'm glad he spearheaded this site. I think sports journalism, or at least opinion writing, needs a kick in the ass.

Obviously, Grantland is going to have a leg up on their market share than we at FtF have in ours, because they have the backing of ESPN. That being said, I know some in the audience have reservations about trusting ANYTHING Simmons will do because you may not like him as a writer. I've had problems with him in the past, but at the same time, he's the guy who made me want to write blogs and my column at The Triangle better. He's probably the single biggest influence on me and my writing style, so of course, I'm still a fan of his and I still support things he does. I'll have my eye on this, and maybe I, as well as the other folks at FtF, can learn something about marketing a premium blogging product.

Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!

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