the day i started considering a twitter account


for as long as HACAM (birthed as HAM) has been around, i've had the blogroll over to the right that's not as much a blogroll as it is a tip into my daily internet surfing habits. "to pass the time" isn't as much recommendation as it is this is what i like, maybe you would too. the most disappointing part of "to pass the time" has been the coming and going of friends that started a blog, wrote for a short period of time, then left the blog just sitting there, an interweb snapshot of what sounded like a good idea at the time only to play out as a timekiller that was eventually re-prioritized to the back of the backburner. andy, kiker, joseph, rebecca used to write, and then they didn't. my brother is still linked, but he doesn't write anymore. so, "to pass the time" isn't as much a blogroll, because i don't know many people anymore that blog.

as it stands now, the longest tenured blogger on the list is a guy i've never met, but his work has been a part of my life for years now, a guy named dan shanoff. i "met" dan several years ago when he was writing for espn.com's page two. his column was called "the daily quickie" and it was brilliant for it's time. it summed up the previous days biggest sports news and the day-of's stories that espn would likely be tracking in quick-hitting, 15-20 word blurbs. he was full of piss and hyperbole, using the phrase "instant classic" before you started hearing it everywhere and quick to judge last night's game as the best. thing. ever. it was awesome then. and it's awesome now. dan's been gone from espn for several years now, but his daily quickie concept has had several different iterations, most notably as the morning "wake-up call" on the sporting blog and then on his personal blog.

about six months ago, dan started teasing his new company, a company that he would appropriately call "quickish". quickish launched about a month ago and it quickly and easily has become my most passionate internet obsession (sorry, facebook). so, what is quickish? this page describes it in full, but, in short, it's a insta-ish hub for all things sports. every sports reporter has a twitter nowadays. many of them use their clever powers for good and post intelligent quips and commentary about the events they are paying attention to. quickish's editors cull through all of these tweets/columns/on-air commentary and publish what, in their opinion, makes the most relevant sense to the narrative a respective game/match is telling/will tell tomorrow. thus far, quickish has been at it's rapid fire best during nationally broadcast, everyone-is-paying-attention games. the divisional nfl playoff games, jimmer fredette's coming out party last week against san diego st. and today's lakers/celtic tilt are good examples. last sunday, though, most of the sports country was watching the same thing, the nfl conference championship games. fortunately for quickish, they just so happened into a circumstance that almost destroyed the internet.

if you were watching the bears/packers game, you know the story. jay cutler is mysteriously absent when the bears take the field early in the third quarter. fox is sent scrambling to tell the nation what the crap is going on. their sideline investigation discovers that "something" has happened to one of cutler's knees, and he is questionable to return. the funny thing is, cutler, if you go purely by the picture on the television, didn't look hurt. he wore his normal douchebaggery look on his face as he hid under his hooded overjacket and toboggan. their were images of cutler trying to loosen up...something...on the stationary bike. cameras caught him later in the game staring aimlessly from the bench. not helping his back-up read the endzone pictures. not encouraging his teammates that were fighting without him for a trip to the super bowl. he reacted with positive emotion after his back-up's back-up got the bears back into the game, but, by that point, the internet (mostly via twitter) had written their story.

what is wrong with cutler?

why isn't he in the game?

this guy has no heart!!!

they would have to drag me off the field on a stretcher!

is he even hurt???

he's not hurt, he's scared!

he looks retarded!!!

i bet he spits on old people!

jay cutler raped my baby!

death to jay cutler!!!

long live caleb hanie!

who is caleb hanie?

exactly.

the reaction and the punishment was swift and severe. the internet had declared jay cutler a quitter, and it is going to take him years (if ever) to shake that tag, a result of one football game (his biggest ever, of course) out of many, many football games he's played.

quickish editors, i can only imagine, were in heaven. everyone in the sports community, players and reporters and fans alike, had an opinion, and they were all putting it out "for all the world to see".

i got caught up in it, myself. i jumped on facebook and live-blogged along to the events of the fourth quarter. it was invigorating and fun. i wanted to be a quickish editor so bad i could taste it. by the time i joined the fray, the cutler thing was almost old news, so i commented on the game itself, rooting against a hamstrung bears team that i didn't want to watch in the super bowl. i loved it!

shortly after the game, a facebook friend posted a status update.

"facebook is not twitter."

i felt the twinge in my gut as though they were saying it to my face, calling me out in shame. you idiot! don't you know how to use the internet?

now, they may or may not have been talking about my blowing up their status feed with shit they cared nothing about, but my guess is that they were.

which begged the question, do i want a twitter account?

i am still not sure if i do. at this point, i am much more interested in the idea of "following" the sports-related community than i am in search of another public outlet to spout my opinions. and to be honest, the idea that "facebook is not twitter" is debatable in it's own right. facebook is competing for advertising dollars with twitter. i am certain they would love if they could pull relative newbies like me away from a quasi-competitor and keep me committed to them and only them.

what i do know is that it seems to me like the advent of quickish is affirmation of something that i truly believe. you can dislike the era that we are currently in, the era where social media has given just as much weight to what i say as anybody else, but this is an evolution, not a fad. just like the cell phone and the laptop, social media is a step forward, not a step back.

i love that quickish has tapped into the potential of what is likely only going to grow in depth, quality and style. i love that, even if i decide against the whole twitter account, quickish allows me to tap into that universe and reap its benefits at the same time it's arming me to comment on its darkside. thanks to quickish, i probably don't need a twitter account to know that the national consensus paints jay cutler as worthless and jimmer as basketball jesus.

but, i'll probably get one anyway.