I’m twitter user #3,404. I’ve been a daily twitter user since before it had vowels, so I’ve seen it grow from a fun little experiment to a platform with a lot of promise to the behemoth it is today. How I’ve used the service has changed over time, but it seems like more and more, I use it to complain. And from the folks that I follow, they’re doing the same.
Yeah, we use twitter to celebrate victories, share breaking news, and keep in touch – but it feels like the vast majority of tweets from the people I follow are sarcastic land mines – and mine are too. It’s too easy to pop open my twitter client and unleash my righteous indignation at the latest outrage perpetrated by the internet. Sarcasm is easier than productivity, encouragement, enlightenment or even humor. It’s to the point that a great percentage of my vocabulary exists only to express sarcasm.
But, it’s not helpful. It’s not even all that much fun. It’s mostly annoying and makes people more likely to be sarcastic and annoying themselves.
So, I’m going to try to stop. My challenge for myself this week is not to post any sarcastic tweets. None. Zero.
Wish me luck. It’s going to be so hard.