Pirates Being Swept By The Astros, Or The Intellectual Wasteland That Is Twitter: Which Is Less Depressing?

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…Or, rather, word(s) totaling 140 characters or less.

YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE I HATE ABOUT TWITTER? Hashtags that don’t actually function in categorizing things, but instead offer ironic or otherwise pseudo-humorous comment. #almostneverfunny

Houston outscoring the Pirates 17-6 is much more depressing than Twitter. #stopfollowingpeoplewhohaveanaxetogrind.

I’ve been active on Twitter for roughly the past two years. I have three accounts–one for school-related self-promotion that I have not updated in roughly two years (largely because, I would like to believe, I find self-promotion on social media platforms to be tacky and shallow) one for political and personal commentary, and one for sports-related commentary. While most of my discussions on Twitter have been light banter, I find that it is possible to have rich discussion on that platform.

One of the facets of Twitter that most interests me is the 140-character post limit. While this seemed utterly ridiculous to me when I first joined, I eventually came to embrace it as a challenge–namely, how can I best express my ideas in a small framework? Twitter forces me to craft my ideas into their most compact and essential form.

While not all conversations can work under those parameters, I’ve found it possible to have rich conversation on specific topics. For example, I’ve had reasonable, well thought-out discussion on Twitter about the performance of Jose Veras. This works because the primary evidence that I (and hopefully most others) use for baseball players are statistics, and they can be crafted into a few short characters. This makes it possible for me to express my opinions and provide backing for it in the framework of Twitter. Responses that use the same pattern of concise expression of evidence lead to conversations of value.

While I would prefer to use more space to express my thoughts, having that space does not necessarily mean that I could use it well. This is where I find a breakdown in the ideas that Twitter “brings out the worst in people” or that (as bucdaddy states above) it encourages poor writing and thought. To the first point, I think it is simple thought that brings out the worst in people. Yes, Rob Biertempfel can make a poor remark about “basement bloggers” on Twitter, but it’s wholly possible for him to

(Understand that I do not use that example to single out Biertempfel as an individual–to reiterate a sentiment expressed by Charlie, many Pirates media members have said foolish things.)

To the second point, I don’t think that it’s fair to say that Twitter encourages poor writing or poor thinking. Like I said before, it forces people to condense their thoughts into the most essential ideas. How people go about meeting the 140-character limit is at the discretion of the individual, and not the platform; to blame the latter seems to me misguided because the former makes the decision. (There’s a good discussion to be had about the usage of language itself; I find this article to capture the challenges very well.)

I’m also skeptical of the idea that Twitter encourages poor thinking habits. Sure, my thoughts on how my day went may not amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world, but to simply dismiss those comments as uninteresting or of little value is quite crass. I’ll admit to being guilty of that more often than I’d like, but I don’t think it’s responsible to judge the worth of events and thoughts in another person’s life. By judging the worth of what someone should post, it is in effect a judgement of the worth of that content.

All in all, I don’t think it’s fair to say that different mediums of communication encourage intelligent or unintelligent thought one way or another. They change the way in which we express those thoughts, to be certain, but how we express things can be separated from what we are expressing.

Who can forget this great comment after Matt Bandi wrote a very long and detailed article?

YouTube comments. This is a good video about it. A lot of the comments at YouTube make Beavis and Butthead seem like sophisticated commentators on American culture.

Facebook comments can get really stupid too. No, Michelle, a computer virus cannot start your hard drive on fire. And no Jenny, that kid is not missing, he/she was found six weeks later. In 2003. And Dennis, the leaves changing colors and falling off the trees? It’s not global warming, it happens every f***ing September. You’re a year older than me, you should be really used to it by now. And Melissa, you never talked to me in high school. You have some nerve complaining about who I vote for now.

Also, the World of Warcraft forums can be a real IQ draining experience. And of course, the Smizik blog comments can make twitter seem pretty damned intellectual.

When it comes to twitter, I try to avoid having any sort of intellectual conversation there. I resisted having a twitter account for a very long time because I felt that I couldn’t really say what I thought in just 140 characters. Eventually I gave in and did it because I realized I was probably missing a lot of good stuff, which I was. But I also was missing a lot of crap. I mean, I follow Jose Canseco. Not because he writes anything even remotely interesting, but because he’s such a train wreck that it’s hard not to find it enjoyable.

Let me try a counterpoint to this:

We can certainly marvel in the command of Lincoln had between his reasoned thought and his speech. Likewise, we can also study the beauty of someone like Shakespeare’s command of the language. But here’s the thing — those people were geniuses. 99.9% of the population couldn’t even come close to matching that level of prose. It’s like improv comedy: if you watch someone like Tina Fey do it, it’s hilarious and you wonder why there isn’t more improv shows out there. If you go to your local community theatre to watch your neighbor do it, it’s hideously painful and you realize why.

We assume that because those old ways of writing are so complex that they must be better. Give Twitter some credit: it simplifies communication and, in general, simplicity is a better way to communicate. Kidspud wrote a reasoned, 500 word post above and Mr. E had a more memorable rebutal with 7 words. Most of the population can communicate reasonably well in 140 characters. It ain’t Shakespeare, for sure, but it usually gets its message across.

I will agree, though, that Twitter is a lousy place to have an argument.

Although why people with websites of their own and paychecks to earn have given over so much of the product of their labor to another website that pays them nothing has always been a little confusing to me.

Ouch, you cut me to the quick!

A squirrel on water skis!! Is there a link to that on youtube anywhere

Because I can ignore it. For some reason, I can’t ignore Pirates baseball, no matter how bad it gets. I’m drawn to it like a moth to one of those bug-zapper things.

Not for someone from the outside looking in.

I believe you do quite fine bringing pirates related tweet content to me, and other sites do the same for non-pirates related info. It’s generally a matter of seconds before it reaches here and say MLBTR… the content is then presented with more substance which is much appreciated.

Maybe it’s just age resistance, or that we had a lady get fired at work recently for saying bad things about the company (searching content rather than users… easily kills privacy), or the fact that I would only use it for what you already provide me in a much more expanded, well thought out presentation… to me it’s as necessary as a subscription to US magazine.

I don’t do the twitter, but shouldn’t there be something out there about callups?

Don’t have a problem with other people using it, but don’t use it myself, and probably never will. And I’d never trust any info that came from it unless I confirmed it somewhere else first.

but its still bad. I tore into Paul Zeise on Twitter yesterday. i have no idea what the guy has against Charlie Morton, but he is downright unprofessional when he discusses him. I cant stand it.

The Astros series on the other hand was the worst. I couldnt be more upset with the way we are finishing up the season. It sucks. I was a realist this year, but I still had some hope that we would finish respectable. Gettin whooped by the Astros was a swift kick to the balls.

Sanchez’ value to the Giants in their championship season is irrelevant when discussing the trade. The Pirates gave up two months of Sanchez, during which he sucked for 25 games (OPS of .619, if I remember correctly). He spent the rest of that season on the DL. He was not going to be a Pirate the next year, as he turned down their contract offer and failed to meet the requirements to activate the option season in his contract.

probably tops either in most depressing category