Twitter

Dear Twitterers,

Can someone please explain this awesome new thing to me like I'm five years old and raised by wolves?

Here's what I've got so far: So these guys invent this service where you can send short messages to your friends. Ok, sweet. But what's even CRAZIER is that you can actually send and receive all of these messages -- back and forth between you and your friends -- on your cell phone. That about sum it up? Great. Well, I feel like I'm destroying the Santa Claus fantasy for a bunch of hopped up first graders here, but when I was in college A DECADE AGO I had a cell phone that -- wait for it -- let me send short text messages to my friends. And they could send messages back. And we could tell each other shit like, oh, I dunno, WHATEVER IT IS WE WERE UP TO AT THE MOMENT. zOMG!!1!11136

Wait, before you say it, lemme try and guess where you're gonna go with this.

You: "No, but Otis, you don't get it, because this is TOTALLY different, because you can like, FOLLOW people."

Me: wtf?

You: "Yeah, you know, like, you can see what your buddies are up to."

Me: wtf?

The other day I sat at a bar with one of my buddies watching the NCAA tournament. We were hanging out with all our other buddies. He was on his blackberry tweeting. And in an experiment to try and help me figure this thing out, we set up an account for me on Twitter. And then they set it up so I "follow" him. (Me: still wtf?). And so then we're all sitting around, and so he has a funny thought, and he says it out loud, and we all laugh, and then he takes out his blackberry and twitters (am I even saying this right?) this thought to all of his tweeters. Oh, by the way, his tweet people include me and his sister-in-law. That's it. Well, I'm right here, and I just heard what you said, and I know that's my blackberry buzzing in my pocket from your twitter. What's stopping him from just texting this to his sister in law? NOTHING. That's what. Absolutely NOTHING.

So I got people following me, and I'm following people, and we're all texting each other and whatnot, but somewhere in my gut I have this unnerving feeling that I'm not really following any of this shit. The inernet -- no, the world -- has officially passed me by. But I give these twitter guys credit, because they've sold you all a bill of goods, and you folks can't pay up fast enough. I've never seen anything like it. I mean, look at the freaking logo that they put on your account when you join -- it's a stupid emoticon picture of a confused face with one big eye and one little eye. (I only know this because the good people at Urban Dictionary say so). Even the brain trust AT TWITTER isn't really sure what the hell this is all about. They are so totally screwing with you, people.

By the way, I had this killer idea as I'm sitting here writing this blog. You know how you can, like, read it? Well, here's what I'm thinking. Wouldn't it be cool if I could send you my blog, VIRTUALLY. Not like on a newspaper, but, like, over the internet. OH OH. And if you have anything to say back to me, you could send ME a virtual message too. You with me? This will be all the rage with the kids especially. Folks will be messaging each other back and forth all day. No more sending letters. NO MORE POSTAGE. We'll call it something crappy and gimmicky, like booter™ or something. And in a year some asshole will ask in a blog "how the fuck is this different from e-mail?," and we'll just shake our heads at him. YOU DON'T GET IT, ASSHOLE. You just don't get it.