follow me on twitter @okelleykevin
well, i did it. raise your hand if you're surprised.
...
me either.
almost two full years ago next month, i published this ignorant piece of bullshit. you see what i did with it? i played (by played, read: pretended to be) as nice and diplomatic as i could, but there wasn't anything in the tone of that post that said i was giving twitter an honest shot at being worth anyone's time. even in the comments that followed, i used the positive reinforcement that i got from a couple friends to feel better about just how ignorant i was being. and for almost two full years, i continued to feel the same. about it all. the 140 character limit, like my wasting my own time (and yours) on my relatively long-form blog posts somehow rendered a tweet irrelevant. the narcissistic angle. seriously, the moment i made the intentional decision to put this journal where "all the world" could see it, i struck that defense from any argument i could ever make about anything internet-related. the subject matter angle, which, really, i am bothered moreso by that than anything else as i re-read this again. in the post, i dug at comments that might alert followers to what someone may have done to their hair to what movie they felt like pimpin' in a given moment to random joe athlete pimping himself, shouting out to his fans mid-game. the reason this bothers me so much is because it's all freaking relative, right? of course it is. i say that all the time, because i believe it. what's not important to me could be EXTREMELY FUCKING important to the next person, so what right do i have to judge and gauge the importance of anything that is coming out of anyone's mouth at any given time? dammit, i hate being a moron. and i hate being a hypocrite even worse. but i am, with a capital "H".
thank god for personal growth and evolution.
a little over three weeks ago, i started warming to the world of twitter, and i published this slightly less than ignorant piece of bullshit. quickish opened my eyes to what twitter could do if someone harnessed its powers for good. each day, quickish gets more in tune with what they do, and i now visit it more often than any other site on the internet. what's funny, though, is that it has opened a canyon of interest in me that quickish alone can't seem to fill. i've asked myself, quickish is doing a masterful job of compiling and sharing with me what its editors have deemed relevant to the sports stories of the day, but what if i don't want quickish to be my editor? what if some of what they are filtering out would add quality to my sports experience or day? what if something that one of my favorite columnists says doesn't make their cut but would totally crack me up or lead me to a column that i'll chew on for days?
the more i asked myself the initial question and its obvious follow-ups, well, the answer came pretty easily and fairly quick. i didn't want quickish to be my editor. i will still lean on them to be my tipmaster and to point me in directions that i wouldn't have time to find myself (and therein lies the genius of that site), but i am going to start creating my own filter.
and so today, i opened up my brand spanking new twitter account, and i couldn't be happier.
so, are you going to tweet, too?
i'd like to tell you, honestly, that i won't. but that's every bit as ridiculous as my writing about how twitter was worthless two years ago.
what about "facebook is not twitter".
fuck that. it really bugged me on that day that i might have bugged one of my facebook friends with my quick-hit updates, but the sentiment doesn't hold water. i see many facebook friends having tied their twitter to their facebook anyway, and facebook does a good job, from what i've noticed, of grouping and consolidating multiple tweets into a ziplink that you can choose to click on or not if you are interested in looking to "see similar posts".
so, yeah, i'll probably tweet. i have no idea about what, and i have no idea how i'll differentiate between what's worth a tweet and what's worth a status update, but i am guessing i'll find my groove sooner rather than later.
thank god for personal growth and evolution, indeed.
and thank god for twitter.
Showing posts with label twitter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label twitter. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
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.
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.
Friday, November 13, 2009
i'll mail you in
my invisible friend was giving me shit the other day...
"dude. you've been mailing it in on the blog for, like, a month now. all you're doing is linking to other's people work and adding a picture to go along with it to act like you can take some of the credit. hell, sometimes, you are posting their picture too. other times, you are just posting pictures with weak-ass captions. what is wrong with you? are you a hack now?"
first of all, screw you, invisible friend.
second of all, i have always been a relative hack.
third of all, i will count you among those that never got around to reading the fine print here on this miserable waste of ether. whether it's my destroying your soul with my mindless rambling or linking to something that i think is cool/funny or just putting up a picture, there are two and only two reasons i spend time here. a) because it makes me happy. b) at some point, my girls are going to get a hold of this and know me on some level that they didn't before mommy e-mails them this address and says, "happy birthday/merry christmas/you need this in your life right now". "that's it. that's the list (thanks, tk)".
am i naive'? of course i am, but not in the regard that i don't fully understand that i am publishing this "for all the world to see". fair or unfair, that's the part that makes my narcissistic side happy. i can rail on twitter and facebook nation (of which, now, i am a card-carrying member) all i want, but, shoot, i was vain way before it was cool and/or progressive to be vain. color me whatever color that tints me and color you late on the joke. so, what does that make me? a bastard? sure. disrespectful? at times. honest? not always. biased? predictably, yes. wrong? well, no. not really. for all the collateral "damage" some have been interested in arguing that has taken place in and because of these parts, my guess is that equal amounts of truth and good has been established too. that's just my spin, my this is my spin-full zone. this is not fair and balanced. quite the opposite.
it is what it is. (man, i am so ready for that phrase to go the way of my diseased kidney)
most of "you" didn't come here looking for this every so year reminder. most of "you" don't need it. really, it's just my invisible friend that's being a little bitch.
honestly, though, i'm the one that needs the reminder, because i am the one that stresses out every time i think about "mailing it in". if i give it enough critical thought, though, the space in between every one of these posts, whatever they end up being, will tell their own stories. the longer the pause, the more to wonder about. if i was able to do HACAM for a living and gave "you" shit umpteen times a day, it would get tired. it would feel like work. and it would be worth even less of my and your time. i'd be telling them the story, instead of letting them figure it out for themselves.
right?
rationalization 101 or the rules of my game. you decide. it doesn't really matter anyway.
"so, does this mean you're gonna start writing again soon?"
it sounds like you missed the point.
but, to answer your question, in the short term, i'll be posting the coolest picture i've seen yet of the best running back in the country.
toodles.
my invisible friend was giving me shit the other day...
"dude. you've been mailing it in on the blog for, like, a month now. all you're doing is linking to other's people work and adding a picture to go along with it to act like you can take some of the credit. hell, sometimes, you are posting their picture too. other times, you are just posting pictures with weak-ass captions. what is wrong with you? are you a hack now?"
first of all, screw you, invisible friend.
second of all, i have always been a relative hack.
third of all, i will count you among those that never got around to reading the fine print here on this miserable waste of ether. whether it's my destroying your soul with my mindless rambling or linking to something that i think is cool/funny or just putting up a picture, there are two and only two reasons i spend time here. a) because it makes me happy. b) at some point, my girls are going to get a hold of this and know me on some level that they didn't before mommy e-mails them this address and says, "happy birthday/merry christmas/you need this in your life right now". "that's it. that's the list (thanks, tk)".
am i naive'? of course i am, but not in the regard that i don't fully understand that i am publishing this "for all the world to see". fair or unfair, that's the part that makes my narcissistic side happy. i can rail on twitter and facebook nation (of which, now, i am a card-carrying member) all i want, but, shoot, i was vain way before it was cool and/or progressive to be vain. color me whatever color that tints me and color you late on the joke. so, what does that make me? a bastard? sure. disrespectful? at times. honest? not always. biased? predictably, yes. wrong? well, no. not really. for all the collateral "damage" some have been interested in arguing that has taken place in and because of these parts, my guess is that equal amounts of truth and good has been established too. that's just my spin, my this is my spin-full zone. this is not fair and balanced. quite the opposite.
it is what it is. (man, i am so ready for that phrase to go the way of my diseased kidney)
most of "you" didn't come here looking for this every so year reminder. most of "you" don't need it. really, it's just my invisible friend that's being a little bitch.
honestly, though, i'm the one that needs the reminder, because i am the one that stresses out every time i think about "mailing it in". if i give it enough critical thought, though, the space in between every one of these posts, whatever they end up being, will tell their own stories. the longer the pause, the more to wonder about. if i was able to do HACAM for a living and gave "you" shit umpteen times a day, it would get tired. it would feel like work. and it would be worth even less of my and your time. i'd be telling them the story, instead of letting them figure it out for themselves.
right?
rationalization 101 or the rules of my game. you decide. it doesn't really matter anyway.
"so, does this mean you're gonna start writing again soon?"
it sounds like you missed the point.
but, to answer your question, in the short term, i'll be posting the coolest picture i've seen yet of the best running back in the country.
toodles.
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