Twitter: The Next Social Bookmarking Site

Is it me or is Twitter is becoming nothing more than an RSS feed powered by people who I think are interesting? Now, before you bunch your hipster flannels into a wad, I understand that the purpose of The T is to share ideas with the social web in fewer characters than a text message. However, without context around your personal motivations for sharing, how is that any different than a social bookmarking site?

It's not... At least I don't think so... Then what's missing?

Color. WHY exactly are you sharing that link about Dopey Financial Group bringing in a new CEO? Does it affect you? Are you outraged? Tell us what compelled you to click that share button! Though at this point in Twitter's evolution people can deduct when you're simply trying to move traffic to your site or suck up to another user by retweeting their portfolio of blog posts, let me be clear with my idea here:

The mere act of sharing something does not inherently illuminate your motives behind doing so.

A lot of brain neurons fire between the time that we decide to share an article and its final postage to Twitter, but those dots remain vastly disconnected. Clearly your interests are peaked, so why not take that one step further and tell us why. The ubiquity of sharing these days has made way for vain and whimsical "participation" by way of a personalized message board that we figure people want to see. Why then, would you want your sole contribution to the Twitter universe to be a regurtiation of links from CNN, Mashable, and Huffington Post? To each their own, I suppose, but again- If I'm looking for that, I'll just visit Reddit or Digg.

Thoughts?

Lying Makeup

My Torn Achilles

Yep, it's gone. There is a gap in the back of my ankle where the strongest tendon in my body used to be. We're all familiar with the Greek Warrior 'Achilles'; fabled for his unparalleled strength in all parts of his being...expect for his heel. And after taking an arrow to the back of his foot, homeboy was useless.

...Well so am I.

Yesterday while playing a pickup game of flag football down in San Diego, my team was on defense and the play call was for a blitz. This play was just like any other that I'd had over the course of the day as I was perpetually thinking about the best way to avoid injuring my knee. I've had terrible knees for the last few years and whenever I'm doing anything that involves fast movement and directional changes, I have a heightened level of sensitivity around the anchors of my legs. I suppose that would be the second least of my worries.

As the ball was hiked, I planted my foot to begin the play. When I stepped forward, I felt something in the back of my ankle just above my heel; like someone had dropped a weight on me or jumped down on top of my leg. After I fell to the ground, I rolled over to diagnose what had just happened. I looked at my ankle and it wasn't dangling off or anything so all was well there--but then I looked at the area where my leg met the back of my shoe and said "yup, that was my achilles, DAMMIT". Basically there was an air pocket of loose skin where my tendon used to be. Between the fits of pain, racing through my mind were the inconveniences involved with being unable to walk for the foreseeable future.

At this point I'm 36 hours out from the rupture and another 60 hours from my surgery. It was pretty foul listening to the orthopedic specialist describe how they're going slice open the back of my leg, pull down the tendon that has rolled up my calf, and reattach it to what little tendon was left behind my heel.

I guess we'll see how things go over the next few days. I'm 98% immobile and dropping percocets every 5 hours which have been piping me off into a land of disillusioned enchantment full of colorful bubbles and soft sleepy sheep. It could be worse though. I could've torn it while doing something far less cool than playing football.

More to come...

My Short Attention Span ...

...is forcing me to rethink the way that I process the world around me. So how do I return to the good ole days (1990s) when I could actually wait until 6 o'clock for the evening news, wait until half time for sports scores, wait until I was finished with dinner to use the phone, and patiently thumb through encyclopedias to find the largest pinky toe ever recorded?

I can't. And I don't think that I could if I wanted to.

Regardless, here are 5 ways that I know that my attn span is kicking the bucket...

1) My brain is over gratified by perpetual nuggets of "new".

Ever find yourself refreshing a newsfeed or forum page that you just refreshed? Better yet, ever find yourself checking all of your social media communities for updates/notifications and legitimately feeling dejected when you didn't have a new comment or request? Yeh...- Your brain is telling you something.

2) If I see a paragraph with more lines than I can count at a glance, I'm skipping over it.

Who has time to read nowadays?! Well- Everyone I suppose since our faces are always glued to some sort of screen or monitor. Ok, so then who has time to read more than 2 sentences at a time without a break? Coffee Shop Philosophers maybe...? Though they're probably only looking at the pictures.

3) I can't bear to do fewer than 2 things at a time.

Walking and texting. Driving and texting. Talking and typing. Eating and web surfing. Watching TV and status updating. Reading and listening to music. Flying and Wifi-ing. (What'd I miss besides everything?).

4) Soccer... Love to play, hate to watch.

So if two teams are scoreless going into the 89th minute, then I've been watching them kicking a ball around for nothing. If someone scores in stoppage time then that's all that I needed to see...yeah?

5) Two minutes of a song at the bar/club is still too much.

Dear DJs, when playing Too Short's "Blow the Whistle"- feel free to mix things out after, 'what's my favorite word'.

I'm not sure what to do at this point, but I will tell you that I did about 12 other things while writing this. Which reminds me; we always hear that when you're doing multiple things, no ONE thing is ever done well. Case in point, people who walk and text at the same time are shitty pedestrians whom even auto-correct cannot save from sending such gems like, "did the hummus hump the rice".

(Which happened to me yesterday)

City People Directions vs. Non-City People Directions

I thought I'd share a little text message exchange between a friend and I while in pursuit of a local wine store in Arlington, Va.

Me: Where's the vino place?
C-Note: I told u on Clarendon Blvd
Me: That's a long street...
C-Note: Past Orvis
Me: Cross streets are helpful
C-Note: Across from the container store
Me: Where's that? Cross streets are helpful
C-Note: It's right past Orvis before the eye glass store
Me: !!!
C-Note: I don't know. Whatever street is before grocery store and after Cheesecake Factory

*Sigh*

...And notice that she gave me 5 points of reference, none of which are relevant without a cross street. At that rate she may as well just give me an address.

Obama vs. Oil Spill vs. America

In case you missed it, President Obama addressed the Nation last night to outline his planned response to the gulf oil spill. Though it was met with terrible reviews, I can't help but wonder what more people want from this guy?



It reminds me of the armchair quarterbacks complaining about why Mark Sanchez, quarterback for the New York Jets, can't throw an accurate pass down field? Well...could you throw that pass? Likewise, Obama is being tasked with coordinating a clean up effort, ensuring the health, environmental and economic viability of the entire gulf region, levying sanctions upon British Petroleum (BP), and keeping literally everyone happy in the meantime. This is an absolutely catastrophic event and we are acting like he's holding out on those magical powers to clap his hands and make it all go away.

Critics complain that Obama didn't outline ANY sort of plan but rather, "once again", spoke in grandiose and inoperable terms looping in this as an opportunity to begin the pursuit of clean energy alternatives. (Conspiracy theorists a-chatter much?) Let me put it like this; this administration is comprised of some of the smartest, most calculated people in this country and the gamble that they faced was to either OVER-promise, or UNDER-promise. If he had strutted in touting to get everything cleaned up within the next month, to criminally fine BP for their entire $100B market cap value, and make gulf seafood more delicious than ever, that STILL wouldn't be enough because you'd have people saying, "how the hell does he think he's going to do that?" To be clear, I can't necessarily blame them either because we're all cynical when we're getting screwed over. That should, however, be reserved for residents of the gulf affected by this mess.

For example, it's natural to want help immediately after we break our leg skateboarding, but the reality is, we've got to wait for the ambulance. Are EMTs driving too recklessly? Is there too much traffic? Is the driver incompetent? Is there bad weather? Do they have the right equipment? Most of these are considerations for the OTHER side...- all we have to think about is how much pain we're in. Lets not forget however, that like EMTs, quarterbacks, and (most of) our government officials, they're trained at this.

Everyone has an opinion on how they can govern better than the people currently doing so because in our diluted heads, the only interests that we actually consider are our own. That goes for Tea Partiers acting like they're the only Americans being taxed. That goes for Liberals acting like they're the only ones who are poor. That goes for Conservatives acting like they're always the victim. That goes for Libertarians acting like they're the only ones who work hard. No matter who's in office, it always seems like it's those who protest the loudest that are the first with their hands out to the government in hard times... I'm looking at you welfare recipients and big banks.

So everybody just calm down. In the gulf region, livelihoods are at stake. Ecosystems are at stake. Food safety is at stake. If we had the expertise to assist here, why are we sitting behind a computer at Starbucks or in a news studio in New York jaw jacking about why the President hasn't done more? You wouldn't tell a Top Chef how to cook Bouilabaisse with Sofrito would you?

...So, since I don't see any of you down in the gulf waist deep in oil, just be quiet while the adults and experts are trying to figure this out.

Damn You

Now that's it's stuck in your head too... go ahead a ruin someone else's day

Employers and The Misuse of Social Media Profiles

We've all heard the tragic stories about individuals being fired, or not hired, because of content found in an online profile. This begs the question; Who's to blame? The person who freely consumed alcohol, whimsically flipped birds at photogs, openly spoke their mind about the world around them, yet failed to lock down their account? Or, the employer who rifled through that profile looking for who knows what...?

Late last year I was forwarded a letter which had been sent as a reply to an employer who had discontinued pursuing a candidate because of content contained within their Facebook account. It begins an interesting debate into whether or not companies are simply weeding out toxic employees, or if they are misguidedly forming assumptions about an individuals work performance based on behavior in their (seemingly) "personal" life.

To quickly summarize the note, "Kyle" (the guy's name) mentions that the employer's older age was the only thing keeping the misguided behavior of his past, in the past. He goes on to align Facebook and LinkedIn as the equivalent personal and professional personas that we adhere to in our daily interactions. To use his words, he describes LinkedIn as a "front". Lastly, he tosses over a pot shot pondering ramifications for George W. Bush had he had a Facebook profile during his college years.

This guy raises a few good questions however. We are arguably more ourselves online than we are in reality because we often remove our social filters to reveal the actual views, opinions, and ideologies that govern our daily perceptions. Just consider how many vile comments you've read in forums simply because these folks knew that they were anonymous and knew that they had social distance. You very well may be one of those people!

I'll acknowledge that Facebook is a different beast as it's not anonymous and we can arguably manipulate how we present ourselves in these spaces. The problem is, we tend to forget that our views and opinions seep through into our social networking personas simply by way of the content that we post, share, retweet, and 'like'. You might not openly say that you agree that Sarah Palin is qualified to run on the 2012 G.O.P. ticket, but if you click "like this" after a friend has posted an article supporting that notion, you may as well own it in reality too.

I would submit that employers sifting through the Facebook accounts of potential candidates can very quickly lead down a road of profiling out certain individuals based on anything from political affiliation, to the types of television shows they enjoy. There's obviously a reason that people are on their best behavior when going in for a job interview; we want them to be professional! It's just an unrealistic expectation to think that people can be professional in all corners of their lives and then, consequently, base the quality of their professionalism on how their downtime is spent.

...but if you were an employer, would you use social media profiles as a means of screening candidates?

President Obama Wants Me To WHAT?!

Mr. President what are you thinking?!

So today President Obama began urging Americans to be patient with the health care reform laws passed early last week. (See the USA Today story detailing his appeal to Americans to give this some time to work.)

I can't help but think our President is completely out of touch with both the people who elected him as well as those who think that he should be impeached since he has direct lineage with E.T. and ALF. If he really thinks that we Americans comprise a nation of enduring and conscientious individuals who are willing to patiently, and without complaint, wait for things to work themselves out, he should go lick cats.

Lets see. We are a nation of people who:

1) ...love get rich quick schemes
2) ...want more! (But want to pay less...)
3) ...can't wait until payday so we seek payday advances
4) ...will shoot someone dead for stealing the 50 Square feet of space in front of them in gridlocked traffic
5) ...will consume fast food even if saving 10 minutes of food prep time will give us high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and high likelihood of looking completely AWESOME when dancing

Thus, I pledge that you join me in telling the President that "I Want It NOW!"...(or, "I Don't Want It NOW!") whichever side you're on. Either way, if it only takes nearly 100 years to pass this type of legislation, then it should have been implemented last year.

...And hurry up with my plate of Hope and side of Change. Things are looking pretty familiar right now...

Lady Gaga: A Musical Comparison

So why am I circling back for yet ANOTHER post on Stefani Germanotta, aka Lady Gaga? Well, there were a lot of people who objected to my previous post which outlined why Lady Gaga's talent is overshadowed by the production of her songs.

There are quite a few videos below so before you go clicking away, let me first be clear. As you'll soon find, she is a GREAT singer and talented pianist.

Let me say that again for those of you who are already poised to contest an argument that they have not yet heard: She is a GREAT singer and talented pianist.

Now, if we're all in agreement, find out for yourself below exactly what I'm talking about. Bottom line, if the piano version of 'Poker Face' went head-to-head with the instrumental track, her acoustic version would have no chance...as with 'Paparazzi'; and as you could imagine, "Just Dance" or "Bad Romance". This is why I cannot, in good conscience, say that Lady Gaga is famous because of her talent. To quote my previous post:

"...her music is not a sole product of her fixed creation; rather, she is a byproduct of/and outlet for, the music that she represents."

The amazing thing is that as you listen to these instrumentals, your brain will automatically begin to insert the vocals. While that might be because she's such a great vocalist, I would argue that it's because the track is so catchy and the production so seductive. Could you possibly imagine anyone else in the world singing this song? Maybe yourself perhaps? That woman down the hall?

Yeah, the song is still pretty catchy regardless of who's behind the studio mic...

Either way, I can't imagine your girlfriend falling over a pile of clothes on a Friday night while getting ready to go out because she was jamming so hard to the acoustic version of "Paparazzi". Acoustic versions give you coffee shop play, not global recognition. A hit track gives you fame, and fame gives you fans...

Take a listen for yourself-



Produced by RedOne:


FF to 1:30...


Produced by her ex-boyfriend Robert Fusari:


Produced by RedOne:


Produced by RedOne:

The Hypersensitivity of Stereotypes

I'm convinced that we learn to take offense.

As a child, I don't recall being offended by someone seductively waving a fried chicken leg in my face, I don't recall being offended by someone offering me watermelon, and I certainly don't recall being offended when people said "purple" kool-aid and laughed. All I knew was that fried chicken was tasty, watermelon was refreshing, and purple kool-aid was the best flavor.

At some point between then and now however, I irresponsibly learned to take offense to those things. After watching white person after white person on television apologizing for using these references (and most recently, Dan Rather), I began to realize that while I didn't know why I was supposed to be offended, I just knew that I was.

This creates confusion.

In attempt to protect the cultural image of my history in America, my priorities quickly became muddled while trying to police any potentially bigoted representation of my heritage. I found myself defending "Watermelon" on Wednesday and the "N-word" on Friday. All of a sudden I began to realize however, if I keep this up, how could my appeals ever be taken seriously?

I say all of this because I have found it absolutely essential to pick my battles. Although I don't always adhere to that, recognition is the first step. To criticize and mis-categorize my intelligence, drive, and humility to humanity, is something of which I will take offense every.single.time. Those are things WORTH defending. Someone suggesting that I'd prefer fried chicken over the swordfish while at a fine dining establishment, is something not dignified enough to secure a reaction. More than anything else, that's simply an illustration of how little this person knows about me as in individual; not a knock on my entire cultural upbringing and overall purpose in the universe.

Bottom line, the prioritization and distinction of these things are essential. I friggin LOVE watermelon, but who doesn't? I'm pretty sure fried chicken is just chicken wrapped in a crispy layer of salt which everyone enjoys, and who has ever turned their nose up at kool-aid? Seriously?!?! Everyone likes these things (among others) so why portray them as something that only black people like? Likewise however, I myself cannot bait these stereotypes by treating them as an all encompassing representation of who my people are. Afterall, you only get to cry 'wolf' but twice...

Why Great Production Trumps Lady Gaga's Talent

I'm not sure if I've said this on here before, but a friend of mine, Kelz, observed that Lady Gaga's weird avant garde wasn't at all congruent with how mainstream her music is. How does no one see this as a problem?! Well--probably because what we 'see' doesn't matter...

But that's what makes her so good. Even if she walked around in the Michelin Man suit with deer antlers over her head and shoes made of 2x4s, her music would still be hypnotically addictive. Hell, her persona could be that of 1-ply toilet paper and I still wouldn't be able to NOT tell people to quiet down so that I could let the build to the chorus of "Just Dance" hit just right.

But that brings me to thesis. Her brilliance lies in the fact that she can get away with and do, in theory, whatever she wants because her music is not a sole product of her fixed creation; rather, she is a byproduct of/and outlet for, the music that she represents.

Allow me to tease out that run-on sentence...

To be clear, I would argue that Lady Gaga is not a star because she's talented; instead, her talent was merely the asset which got her noticed. Sure she can play piano, she can sing, (I guess) she can dance, but how often do we see that? How often do we see her stripped down without the studio, sythesizers, and auto-tune? Shamefully, we don't (and music videos don't count). She, like all of the other pop stars who preceded her, are products of production.

Consider any of the following songs, if given to an attractive and consumable up-and-coming singer, would've produced similar pop-stardom:

1) Hit Me Baby One More Time
2) Since You've Been Gone
3) Promiscuous Girl
4) Party In The U.S.A.
5) I Kissed A Girl

Funny that you could likely name at least 4 of the associated artists with these songs...

AND THAT'S MY POINT!

At this juncture, I'm simply enjoying music that's made in a lab with a genetically engineered sound which naturally appeals to the pleasure centers of my brain. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about it because I'll gleefully sing along to any of the aforementioned songs like I wrote those suckers myself. I just want to make sure that we're all clear on where exactly our affection is originating from. I'm pretty sure if Gaga had her hits produced by my 10 year old cousin on a 1989 Casio Keyboard and still dressed the way she does, her relevance would be completely disqualified in all of our eyes.

Buuuuuuuut in the meantime...

"Just Dance! (Gonna be ok!) Da-doo-doot Just Dance! (Spin that record baaabe)..."

Why Am I Poor?

♫ I'm poor because I'm social--And even if I were rich, I'd still be poor--because I'm social.

A Weekend Without The World...

So I decided to turn my phone off and ban myself from the computer this weekend as a social experiment with myself. Given that I take my Droid and, consequently, the accessibility of the world with me everywhere I go, I wanted to see if I could manage to last 60 hours without this constant connectivity. Moreover, when I consider that I face a constant barrage of updates regarding everything (be it via messaging, email, twitter, or facebook), how different might my world be if I am unable to connect to information and my social circles with the immediate convenience that I’m used to?

Well to start, I’ll say that it was Fan-Effing-Tastic as I was able to engage ten-fold more with those sharing the same physical space as I. Sounds lame. But take a good hard look at how often you engage those physically near you relative to those out in cyber or cellular space. We all have a million friends but none of them are “here”. It felt great to actually be present for once.

When I went out on Saturday night, I realized that I had two options whenever I became uncomfortable at the bar. I could either BE uncomfortable, or I could talk to someone. What I didn’t have the option of doing was using my phone as a crutch. How often do you find yourself checking text messages that you haven’t received because you’re feeling socially insecure? I find that I do it, A LOT.

Despite all of that, perhaps the most unforeseen result of this was the ire that this experiment generated in other people. Confused? Well when I turned my phone back on Monday morning, I had several text messages from friends inquiring about stuff from what I’m doing to if I wanted to grab lunch. Nothing surprising there. What was telling was that upon explaining that my phone had been off for the weekend and that I was sorry for not getting back to them sooner, I had a few different replies which basically said, “You turning your phone off is more annoying to us than it is to you”.

Ding ding ding! This got me thinking…

Technology, accessibility, and connectedness have spoiled us to the point that we now expect information transfer to occur at a rate unheard of 15 years ago. Not only do we expect (and are able) to find the Farsi translation for “crusty feet” in 30 seconds or less, but we also transfer that over to how we expect people to behave within that same technological space. Imagine if all of the search engines decided to say, “Welp folks! We’re going to shut down for the weekend. Anything you need to find you’ll have to find at the library…or, just not find at all. Either way, we can’t help you until Monday. Sorry. Enjoy your weekend.” There would be pandemonium.

Same thing.

Your inaccessibility quickly becomes an inconvenience to others who are unable to reach you whenever they’d like. Your inaccessibility becomes an inconvenience when someone has to wait more than 1hr to hear back from you. Your inaccessibility becomes an inconvenience to everyone except those in your immediate physical space who you, arguably, will wind up appreciating more.

Remember back when if you wanted to talk to someone and they weren’t at home, you just couldn’t talk to them? Remember back when in order to find out the population of Wyoming you had to crack an encyclopedia? Remember back when you had to wait until the 11p news to find out the sports scores? Remember back when life required patience?

Either way, I urge you to give it a try. Detoxing from our phones might be a thought worthy of the withdrawal shakes, but I’d say that it’s worth taking a look at what you might be missing while living a life in pursuit of never missing anything.

Where Are All The Usernames??

I'll make this quick...

I was just thinking to myself, what are kids going to do in 2020 when all of the good screen/usernames are gone? Unless parents start coming up with creative names--uhh, 10 years ago, they're going to be sending updates on dinner plans to JAnderson987654321@gmail.com

Or to BigFloppin@gmail.com -- and even THAT'S not a guarantee.

Poor John Anderson...

The Arrogance of Social Media

Now that everyone is empowered with the tools necessary to share and have their opinions heard, we're all making the most of it. Whereas we previously needed to ACTUALLY be an expert in a field, now the entire internet has become a peanut gallery of experts hawking suggestions for everything from how to raise your children to the best way to blow up a balloon.

Admittedly, I'm alive and well trumpeting loudly from the back of this same peanut gallery with the misconceived notion that you actually care about what I have to say. Voyeurism used to be a bad thing...now we promote our own.

The function of social media for companies is clear. Ditch the market research and speak directly with consumers themselves. No one disputes this, though I feel like they should. How many great products will go undeveloped because a vocal minority on twitter kills the idea out of the gate. Just because you would never purchase an automatic diaper wrapper as it "demeans the essence of early parenthood" doesn't mean that someone else out there wouldn't.

We all take the approach that "no one else can speak for me", yet somehow we're perfectly content speaking for others. If I had my way, Crocs would be dead and so would those bug-eyed mantis sunglasses that women think make them look attractive. Alas, I'm wrong on both accounts since both are a feeding frenzy in their respective markets. (Then again, I've only seen children in Crocs and those sunglasses on the girls who have better things to do than defend their merit via Facebook post.)

Either way, I guess that as long as there's a forum in which to share our lives, thoughts, and opinions, we will engage them. After all, we will always continue to talk as long as there is someone willing to listening.