Social Networking

(Warning: the following blog entry contains technical terms that, if read by someone of a particularly immature mindset, could sound like body functions. Proceed at your own risk.)

Recently, I began to participate in something called "social networking." This is when people like myself join websites like MySpace, Facebook, or Twitter in order to reconnect with old friends and family, or connect with new friends who share a common interest.

If you've followed the media in any way lately, you know that Twitter is all the rage. Celebrities are flocking to this mini-blog site, which has become the trendiest of all social networks.

To participate in Twitter, one produces "tweets," a mini-blog entry of 140 characters or less. One can search Twitter to find friends or celebrities, and "follow" them, so when your home page comes up, all of your fellow Twitterers tweets pop up in their pithy, pungent goodness.

The most exciting thing about Twitter is following celebrities. One of the first celebrities I followed was Wil Wheaton, of Star Trek: The Next Generation fame. I stopped following him when he began dropping f-bombs into his tweets like chocolate chips into a cookie mix, but it was fun while it lasted. Currently, I follow comedians I like, actors, fellow bloggers, and even some random people I don't know who follow me.

I have become so adept at tweeting that, when you Google me, the first thing to come up is my Twitter.

The key to being a successful tweeter is to examine the Twitter Trending topics every day. This is a list of the things most tweeted about at any given time. American Idol, Star Trek, Swine Flu, it's all good tweet fodder. Then, you attempt to compose a witty, 140-character post about that topic.

For example: one day, a trending topic was "Google got shut down." My tweet: "Google Got Shut Down" sounds like a country-western story-song, like "Devil Went Down to Georgia." It earned me the following rave review from a Twitterer I didn't know:

"Ha, ha." You can't fake that kind of acclaim.

If you want to be a really successful tweeter, you incorporate several trending topics in one post, so it will come up on several different searches. For example, let's say the trending topics are Lakers, Swine Flu, Star Trek, and Family Guy. My tweet:

"There should be a Family Guy episode where the guys from Star Trek are playing the Lakers until they all get Swine Flu."

Brilliant? No, it's dreck. But, it will get onto a lot of screens, which will make a lot of people decide to follow me, which will mean...

...nothing. It will mean nothing at all. I love the internet.