Ben Walker – You’re no-one if you’re not on Twitter – full transcription
You’re no-one if you’re not on Twitter …
And if you aren’t there already you’ve missed it 1
If you haven’t been bookmarked, re-tweeted and blogged 2
You might as well not have existed 3
Did you automatically add the second ‘g’ on blogged‘?
In the old days it was all about achievements 4
Collecting all your trophies in a shrine 5
Then everybody came across the internet 6
And suddenly you had to be online 7
It was all about – It used to be a question of / What was important was ….
A homepage was all you really needed 8
To seem like a success but not a geek 9
As long as you updated semi-annually 10
And checked your email once or twice a week 11
You’re no-one if you’re not on Twitter…
Technology was moving rather quickly 12
And the next thing you needed was a blog 13
With intimate and detailed press releases 14
And now and then a photo of your dog 15
More recently the students brought us Facebook 16
And everybody has a hundred friends 17
The parties in the photos look amazing 18
They’re not so great but everyone pretends 19 ……
‘cos now you’re no-one if you’re not on Twitter…
Now you need to publish every movement 20
And every single thought to cross your mind 21
I’m told the Twitterverse is full of rubbish 22
But most of us are really quite refined 23…
If something crosses your mind – something occurs to you, or you think of something – eg It never crossed my mind that I would actually get offered the job. It crossed Janice’s mind last week that our office might be a bit vulnerable if head office starts closing branches.
We validate each other’s insecurities 24
And brag about the gadgets that we’ve bought 25
We laugh out loud at every hint of jolliness 26
And try to self-promote without being caught 27…
This verse makes the point that much of this correspondence is artificial – We validate each other’s insecurities – we confirm each other in our lack of confidence about ourselves
brag – verb – informal disapproving – to speak excessively, or too proudly about what you have done or what you own: Eg He’s always bragging about how much his latest car cost. They bragged that their son’s exam results were the best in the area – actually, they weren’t.
We laugh out loud at every hint of jolliness – the fun and jolliness are forced.
out loud – audibly, so that we can be heard
We try to self-promote without being caught – we try to project an excessively positive image of ourselves, without being too obvious about it so that people realise.
‘cos now you’re no-one if you’re not on Twitter…
Blogging sometimes has unforeseen consequences in politically sensitive areas. Blogs are much harder to control than broadcast or even print media, and consequently totalitarian and authoritarian regimes often try to suppress blogs and/or to punish those who maintain them.
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