Cementum

I like pleasure spiked with pain and
Twitter is my aeroplane
It's my aeroplane
Songbird sweet and sour Jane and
Twitter is my aeroplane
It's my aeroplane
Pleasure spiked with pain
That motherfucker's always spiked with pain

With all the mainstream press Twitter has been getting lately and all the questions I’ve been asked as to why I use the service, I thought I’d do a quick post on it.

If you don’t know what twitter is, it’ll take you 2 seconds to figure it out by simply visiting the site, but in short, it’s a social media tool that lets you update, in 140 characters, what you are doing at any given moment. The people who follow you can then keep appraised of what you’re up to, all the time.

The thing is, it’s evolved into so much more than that, it’s original remit, or mandate, was to ask you, ‘what are you doing?’ and you to simply update what exactly that was. It’s gone far beyond that though, it’s a conversational tool, it’s access to the minds and thoughts and brain custard of hundreds of thousands of people.

One of the best descriptions of it I recently heard was, ‘it’s like being at a party and being able to speak to everyone at the same time’ which I think is awesome. It’s a connection to a live stream of life.

And that’s why I use it.

I don’t watch TV, I don’t even own a TV, I stream programmes occasionally, or download southpark, but that’s about it. When I tell this to people, they’re full of horror, how do I get by without TV? We’ll I’ve got something better, I’ve got my aeroplane, it’s Twitter, a 24/7 show of 300 people that I follow, it’s like the greatest soap opera that’s ever been created. It’s a direct tap into the lives, thoughts, worries, loves, perils, adventures, photos, songs, tastes, troubles and doings of people I actually care to think are interesting.

And it’s all real.

At least I think it is, I hope it is. The point I’m trying to get at? Well, Twitter is a great inspirational tool for a writer, it feeds you constantly with the thoughts of people all over the world. It’s literally brimming with content to be absorbed and digested and experimented with. To grab at, to kneed into a doughy ball, flatten out with some perfectly awesome insight of your own and mould back into prose.

It’s a direct tap into the heads of great people.

It’s the perfect medium to get recommendations, to ask questions of yourself and your work and bounce ideas around. The internet has always been great for this, I remember using ICQ 10 years ago to ask my high chool pals in the evenings what they thought of short stories I wrote. Now, with the likes of Twitter, you’re able to sit in a chatroom of thousands and ask, ‘what do you think of this?’ and with a bit of luck you’ll get a bit of feedback.

In short, for a writer like myself, Twitter is great, it’s my own personal, hand picked soap opera of the thinkers, creative’s, geeks and misfits that I follow. It’s a place to share ideas and share what you’re doing. It’s better than TV, because it’s a conversation, it’s two way, it’s what the social media is all about and it has introduced me to a plethora of awesome people.

Twitter is my aeroplane.