twitter fail blog
sharing the good, and exposing the best of the worst on twitter
Both sides of the fence
There are many reasons we don’t follow celebrities. We can’t understand celebrity-worship. We find most celebrities to be shallow, self-centered, and generally not the sharpest tack in the bunch. Just because someone can carry a tune, or dance provocatively on stage, people will follow them like lost puppies. Celebrities take advantage of that undeserved worship and use those fans to push their personal agendas.
@LadyGaga had some former members of the military as her dates for the VMA’s. We’ll let her tell you about it:
Turns out she was using them as props to talk about her cause: Repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Or so it seems.
The home page of her website asks visitors to “Join Lady Gaga in repealing ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell!’” as if it is within her power to repeal the law herself. She hasn’t been elected to public office yet, so this may be a little over her head.
In her quest to do her civic duty, she’s called some Senators.
Proving that even elected officials can be star-struck, Senator Gillibrand tweeted her, making sure to put a dot before the username so others could she she was part of the in-crowd.
And then, Gaga inadvertently changed her tune, and asked her little monsters to fight against the abolishment of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
They blindly followed her command, and thousands have signed the petition so far. Some even created twitter accounts just for the purpose of doing so. The cynic in us wonders how many duplicate, triplicate, etc., accounts were set up so each monster could sign multiple times. (Not that an online petition carries any real weight, btw.)
Every time the petition is signed, another plea goes out to the twitterverse to support @ladygaga and fight against the abolishment of the ‘DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL’ law. Many of her fans, not knowing the story, will join her fight, and tell their friends to also help keep the law alive.
Once this circulates to the 100th monkey (or monster), Gaga’s initial message will be lost completely as the retweets from the petition fill the twitter streams of fans and non-fans alike, and she will become the voice of intolerance.
This is why we think celebrities should keep their nose out of politics. They aren’t smart enough to use their power responsibly, and no matter how well-intentioned, they can do more harm than good.
UPDATE 09/23/10: Despite Harry Reid’s promise to BFF Gaga that there would be discussion and a repeal of DADT, he voted against the discussion, after first trying to add amendments that have nothing to do with DADT, and everything to do with his re-election campaign. Gaga’s misguided fans evidently didn’t catch that piece of news, and signatures on the petition against abolishment of DADT continue.
Click the image above to see where the count is today.
Don’t quit your day job
There’s an old saying, “telephone, telegraph, tell-a-woman.” Telephones have become cellphones, telegraphs are a distant memory, and the women (and men) are all on twitter. There’s nowhere to hide. Like a fart in church, if you post something stupid on twitter, everyone will know, and you won’t be able to take it back.
As the Boulder fire made its way through thousands of acres, a hashtag #boulderfire was created to get news out, and provide help to the victims.
While firemen continued to fight the blaze, @agripundit posted what we’re hoping is the stupidest tweet of his life. It’s hard to get more insensitive in 140 characters, but he really worked it. As homes are lost, and people are displaced, the “interim director of Colorado’s Farm & Ranch Future,” who should have his finger on the pulse of the mountain community, wrote:
Everyone thought it was funny. Except for practically every single person who actually read it.
Once something is posted on the internet, it never, ever really goes away, no matter what you do. Before @agripundit could hit the delete button, we had a screenshot in our mailbox from an anonymous Honorary Fail Bird Handler who used to live in Colorado. Being the helpful sort we are, we posted it on Twitpic.
To be fair, after deleting his tweet, he did post an apology.
The difference between his tweet and an actual joke? That was rhetorical.
We heard through the back channel that people were calling his office to complain. We don’t think @agripundit should lose his job over this. We do think, however, he should maybe think twice attempting to make another joke online.
Twitter is a tough room. Even people who are funny on stage or TV have a hard time getting laughs on twitter. (Yes, we’re talking about you, @PaulaPoundstone. You’ve let us down.)
A little advice then, @agripundit: Don’t quit your day job. If you still have one.
7 Genuinely Funny Real People on Twitter
When Rackspace got hacked a couple of weeks ago, bad things happened to this blog. Draft posts vanished. Widgets disappeared. We got totally fed up. So, we moved to a new server and are rising from the wreckage and rebuilding.
We’re running a bit low on snark, so, instead of ranting endlessly about out of date server software, bad customer service, inadequate communication, general finger pointing during a crisis, and all that jazz, we give you seven people we follow who are genuinely funny.
@tremendousnews – For Dee, low self-esteem is an art form – tremendousnews.com
@thebloggess – Weird, neurotic, and wonderful – thebloggess.com
@sherigilmour – A woman with a serious attitude problem sherigilmour.com
@JuliaChildCIA – She doesn’t have a blog, but her most faved tweets list is a must read – favstar.fm
@HungryLikeKevin – Clever, with a heapin helping of snark sogoddamn.tumblr.com
And, a shout out to two Honorary Fail Bird Handlers, who are funny enough to write guest posts on this blog:
@stinginthetail – The Queen of Darkness, possibly the AntiChrist stinginthetail.wordpress.com
Guest post: Guy Kawasaki Did Not Invent That Motorbike
@jackassletters – One of the funniest people we know. Jackassletters.com
One of his guest posts: The Secret to Fewer Followers
You won’t find them in our FF list, because we don’t do that.
What funny people do you follow? We’d love to add them to our funny list.
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Sometimes Real Life Gets in the Way
We owe you a post. Had several good ones in various states of completion, and then gremlins came and ate everything.
We have this really kick-ass computer. Or so we thought. Until the power supply/motherboard/ram/whatever-it-was issue happened, and it had to spend three days in the shop. And then we had to play catch up with “real” work after struggling to get stuff done on the laptop we love, but doesn’t have all the awesome software we have installed on the supposedly kick-ass computer.
All that sucks, because we love blogging. If we could blog every day, we’d be thrilled. But since blogging doesn’t pay (Shock!) we do actual work to pay the bills. Here’s a video the amazingly awesome @thebloggess, told us about, which explains why we do it anyway.
So, we owe you an apology. And something cool to look at while we work on the next blog post, which will be up soon, we swear.
We’re sorry we abandoned you. It won’t happen again. Promise.
Here’s the cool thing. There’s a blogger named Greg, who wrote this fabulous song about how much bloggers love comments. Then he had someone record it, and a bunch of bloggers (not us) sent clips that turned into this really cool video. We mean every word in it, as if we wrote it ourselves.
Go read Greg’s blog, Telling Dad and leave him a really good comment. You’ll make his day.
We’ll see you soon.