Twitter board brings the war home!

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2017

Helpful ways to say goodbye to 140 friends:
We've been spending a few hours each afternoon watching the Ken Burns film about a certain well-known war—a war from the 1960s and 1970s.

This morning, finally, at long last, it seems the war has come home! We refer to the struggles being waged by the harried corporate board inside Twitter headquarters.

The thought-provoking platform for blurbs has floated a radical notion. Instead of letting users type 140 characters, the company might allow some lucky duckies to use 280 characters. According to the board, that's exactly twice as many!

Mike Isaac handled the report in the New York Times. We offer a handful of excerpts:
ISAAC (9/27/17): It is a significant moment for the 11-year-old Twitter, which has been trying to figure out how to change the social media service without alienating the people who have embraced its short format.

[...]

Twitter is now preparing for a backlash from those who might take issue with a 280-character tweet.

''We understand since many of you have been tweeting for years, there may be an emotional attachment to 140 characters,'' the company said. ''But we tried this, saw the power of what it will do, and fell in love with this new, still brief, constraint.''
It's history's oldest tale. After cheating on 140 characters, the corporate board "fell in love" with its double-the-pleasure, double-the-fun proposal for 280.

Understandably, though, the company is prepping for a "backlash" from users who have an "emotional attachment" to the smaller number. The board doesn't want to "alienate" these people.

We offer the following question:

How post-human must a life form be to serve on the board at Twitter? We also note the following offering from page A3 of today's New York Times:
Here to Help
HOW TO BE MINDFUL WHILE SAYING GOOD-BYE
That's right! In this morning's "Here to Help" feature, New York Times experts help us know how to stay mindful when saying good-bye "to someone you care about."

We don't want to give the whole thing away, but the helpful advice starts like this:
As you prepare to say goodbye to someone you care about, breathe in and be aware of your body and your emotions. Notice if there is any tightness in your chest, or if you are already thinking about missing the person.

Take a deep breath and instead, just try to be in the present moment with the person you are saying goodbye to. Look the person in the eye and listen to the sound of his or her voice. As you say goodbye, really listen to what the other person says.
The helpful advice proceeds from there. The feature appears beneath the famous motto for the "reimagined" page A3:
You are the dumbest people on earth.
We at the Times want to serve you.
We have our own private thought, each day, when we read the reimagined A3. We state our thought in the form of a motto:

A readership which tolerates this will end up electing a Trump.

4 comments:

  1. "We also note the following offering from page A3 of today's New York Times":
    There are similar articles from 1880. This isn't the crucial clue to our currently broken culture. Keep looking, Bob, you haven't found it yet. But thanks for sharing this time-waster.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I've always thought haikus were kind of stupid but they were part of the civil service exam in ancient China so someone respects them. I remember when people got disproportionately upset because e.e. cummings didn't capitalize letters in his poems.

    But Somerby just loves to call people stupid these days for caring about things that he doesn't care about. I wish he would read his comments and see how this stuff is resonating with a reasonable cross section of his public.

    I don't engage in mindfulness myself but I don't begrudge anyone else the exercise. I never thought zen was worth the effort or meditation, but why is Somerby mocking something just because he doesn't find it useful in his life?

    Personally, I do not think there is much intersection between Trump voters and the mindfulness crowd.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Is there some reason why Somerby has not joined in the discussion about how Ken Burns is getting the Vietnam era wrong on TV?

    ReplyDelete
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