Tag Archives: twitter

I have to admit, I am totally amazed at the coverage of events that have been happening in Japan this past week. I have learned more about nuclear technology, the environment, what it means to millions of Japanese, what it means to the world from a few wonderful news sources. None of which are American.

First I have to compliment BoingBoing.net. Normally a geek based blog side that mostly just re-posts content that is nerd/geek culture centric from across the net. They dive into areas that are very political at times, but I personally think that they have come into a new era of reporting based on the efforts they have put forth to cover the disaster in Japan. The only down side that I can see is that they do not tag or categorize based on that coverage. And because they are a linier blog (new posts on top) some of the great coverage and detailed content can be lost quickly. Of all the sites that I have gone to for info, they are still the first that I head to.

Secondly, and if you know me this should be pretty easy to guess. Twitter. I have found, even when I don’t list it. I am getting wonderfully up to date news. Plus, with a bit of culling you can get a feel for good content vs. crap content. Back in January I decided to drop RSS feeds for twitter and I have not looked back. I get what I want as a nice flow of information and that also includes dialog from non-traditional sources. Plus if their is an error in the information, their will be a lot of chaser tweets with corrections. Now, one thing that I will say about using twitter for news is that it feels more like listening into a crowd, and that can be annoying because you lose context at times of what they are talking about or what is really going on. So use common sense and some caution. That trending topic could be pure B.S.

I think all of this in fascinating, and I respect getting the info from non-standard sources so long as they’re acting in a credible manner. I have seen time and again that if you step outside of the corporate news channels you still get real news, not punditry, or hyperbole commentary. I am not saying it’s all bad. I still read my NYTimes, USAToday, and other news sites. I just think that as each major world event occurs non-traditional media is getting better and better at doing what they do, and I applaud that.

I must admit that I may not be well equipped to comment on the subject I’m going to bring up today. I don’t watch much TV, I don’t listen to mainstream radio, most of my news comes from NPR and PBS, and the bulk of my friends on Facebook are people I actually know in real life. But like a good contributing Spankster I’m going to soldier on.

A few weeks ago I was browsing Google News when a headline in the Entertainment section caught my eye. It was an article regarding the MTV Video Awards, and there was a thumbnail picture of Katy Perry. Upon seeing this the following three thoughts went through my head:

1: She’s the one who did that lipstick lesbian song, right?
2: Man I’d love to motorboat that rack of her’s.
3: MTV is still on the air?

While I have no rose-tinted nostalgia for MTV, they did help push the music video as an artform for better or worse (much to the chagrin of Freddie Mercury). But they did help to give birth to one of the greatest evils on the planet: the reality show.

There were some things I liked watching on MTV, like 120 minutes. And the first couple of seasons of The Real World were a little interesting. But I completely gave up on the channel around the same time the third season of The Real World came on, and I expanded my music sources beyond what was fed to me by MTV and radio. The popularization of the MPEG audio formats sealed the deal for me. MTV was no longer relevant in my eyes.

Not that I wouldn’t check it out every once in a while. It was kind of like visiting a comatose aunt. You’d hang about for a bit, and then say to yourself, “Yep, still brain dead” and then you’d be on your way. MTV was like going the hospice for me.

Sometime ago there was a story that had come out that the channel was changing it’s name from Music Television to just MTV. Though it is interesting from a history of televised media standpoint, it did reveal something that myself and I’m sure many others had known for some time: the channel did not give a shit about music.

At least they finally decided to be honest.

So recently I’m browsing Facebook just to see what goofy stuff my friends are up to, and over in that advertisment section that I usually never pay attention to I see something that mentioned MTV. I just glanced over enough to recognize the logo, but didn’t give it much thought. I was probably distracted by something. Most likely a Mistress Rowynn photoshoot.

So after some time (six minutes… hey, it’s been a while, OK?) I remembered that I need to write a new article for this website. After pondering subjects and realizing that a lot of people had already bitched about them, I remembered seeing that MTV ad on Facebook and decided to investigate further.

What I saw made me glad that I bought four bottles of whiskey at that liquor store that was closing down.

MTV is looking for it’s first Twitter Jockey.

I was so stymied by this that I’m surprised that I can write this article now.

I’m not going to explain Twitter here because I know most readers of this site are tech saavy enough to know what it is. But the idea of having someone deliver supposed news that will affect NONE of our lives in 140 characters or less should be an affront to the people who created Twitter.

People using Twitter to document the aftermath of the Iranian elections is important. People using Twitter to document that LiLo was seen stumbling drunk out of another nightclub is not.

Even Terry Schiavo with her gray matter being damned near all liquid would have looked at this shit and said “Yep, that’s pretty fuckin’ retarded.” And if anyone would have known what ‘retarded’ meant it would have been her! Or maybe not, but you get the point.

Now I will say that I myself have put some pretty dumb stuff on the Internet (shit, look at my YouTube channel for some great examples), but you can’t deny that some thought at least went into it. You can’t say the same for someone who re-twitted… re-tweeted… re-twatted… whatever… a story from Gawker.

And the insult that is added to injury in all of this? The short of word and short of mind asshole who gets this job also gets one hundred thousand dollars.

All of that money for posting 140 characters at a time?!?

Fuck, I write 750+ words per article for this site and I’d be happy to get a blowjob and a Klondike bar for my troubles!

I understand that with all of the entertainment options we have at our fingertips that MTV is trying to stay in the game. This is not the way to do it.

How MTV’s first Twitter Jockey should be fucked in the ass: with a Western Union telegraph machine. Along with a vuvuzela blowing “pandora.com” in morse code in there as well.