Twitter Illiterate

Scott started it.

He joined Twitter (@sid748). He says it was partially to satisfy some curiosity and partially to see if there are some ways to lets his clients know when he is available to take their calls. I say this with no judgement but I think he really joined was to get his next-level fanboy badge; so he could follow comic book artists and other geek boy stuff.  Whatevs. And because I have nothing to do right now I joined too. (@JacflashAbel) Knit-girl fanboy badge here I come.

We get on and immediately realize that neither of us speak Twitter. We text each other with our own marital shorthand but this is a more public forum and there seems to be protocol on how to communicate here.  Sounding very much like anthropologist examining a new and foreign culture we ask each other questions sounding puzzled.

• What is this hash tag business that everyone speaks of?
• Is that what the # symbol is called for real? 
• What does RT mean? (re-text,  re-tweet, return, right turn?)
• Do I have to end each tweet with "WOOT!WOOT!"?
• How do I find and talk to other people?

It took a quick google search and less than 3 minutes of reading and we had cracked the code and we ready to  talk, er, I mean tweet. Twitter is all about who you are following and who is following you.  And seeing that we are not politicians, comedians or people with late night talk shows that meant we were following each other. Then he got one follower and then I got one. And just like that our competition was born.

Scott and I are having a friendly competition to see who will be the first to collect 100 followers. Okay, these are not the loftiest of goals but let's be realistic people- we are NOT Ashton Kutcher or Oprah. Unlike some celebrities, which shall remain nameless, neither of us have a staff of writers and 3 interns a piece, smart phones in hand, ready to tweet our collective stream of consciousness.

As of today I am winning in that I have 20 followers (only 5 of them are sex-workers) and Scott has 7. But seeing that he has only tweeted once, so far, statistically he is doing better than I am.

It is honestly kind of amazing to see the variety of people available to follow on Twitter. Some of them are even who they say they are but it's hard to tell. Twitter is awesome for the self-employed as it is a creative and interesting way to market yourself. Explaining, perhaps, the plethora of sex-workers who seem to want to follow me. 

It is also a pretty cool way to find other like minded geeks - whatever your interest. Scott has found lots of artists and comic book stuff. He was thrilled to get a return tweet and thanks for following from @OfficialKeef, Keith Richard's official twitter page apparently. When he mentioned the return tweet to a colleague she knocked him down a peg and said that unless Keith was coming to our house for dinner she wasn't inclined to be impressed by him getting a return email from someone working for Mr. Richards. Funny but just so that it is said out-loud: Keith Richards is welcome for dinner at our house anytime. Open invitation.

You can see to the right that I have updated this blog to have a link to both of ours Twitter feeds. We're having fun with it. Join the fun and follow us, or at least one of us. Not only am I now Knitwit but I am also Twitwit too.