Tweet for me babe, tweet for you, tweet for me coz I want you to!

I had a lovely breakfast this morning - I had muesli and fresh fruit and my usual co you must be joking... what the fu #crudelanguagewarning

 

Now if @shanewarne can tweet, surely a mature, educated woman can figure this out and express some I am running out again oh sh#!

 

Come on!!!!  I need to learn how to tweet.  You see, I have discovered the perfect job for me.  I am going to tweet for celebrities.  No, wait, I know what you are thinking – celebs can do that for themselves, Lisa.  No – Mary Cross (2011) has confirmed it for me  - celebs and pollies employ people to do it.  Some even have robots doing it!  Cross (2011) says that 75% of tweets are posted by only 5% of the users and that 39% of twitterati use Twitter only to follow celebrities – I have to get me a piece of that!

Now, I have met and known some celebrities in my time.  My personal favourite was during a night out in the early 1990s at Silvers nightclub when I met none other than my pre-teen dream, Dennis Lillee.  Now, Silvers was not my first venue that night and I was firing on all cylinders and found it completely appropriate to hug the delectable Mr Lillee and scream at him “D K Lillleeeeeee!  D K Lillllleeeeee!”  Although he was muttering something about having to call Carpet Court, and despite his having considerably less hair than he did in my dreams, I am sure he experienced the same thrill.  Upon leaving the venue, I spent the next few hours yelling at anyone who might listen – unwitting taxi drivers, bouncers, friends, other people eating hotdogs –“ D K Lilleeeeeeeee!”

On reflection, and without embarrassment, I can see now that my reaction was like a form of pre-technology celebrity tweeting.   It would have been perfect for Twitter – invasive, slightly banal, slightly creative, trivial, boring (Cross, 2011).

But by tweeting for a celebrity , I can go beyond being my edited self (Turkle, 2011, Cross, 2011) and work at being an edited someone else!  It may sound frivolous, but while Twitter is so popular, wouldn’t it be great to use it to make a positive difference in people’s lives?  Not an aim of the likes of Shane Warne or the Kardashians, me thinks.

Dom Sagolla (2009) asks of us: what will we do with this ‘most powerful, ubiquitous, indomitable communication tool?’  I quite like his advice to use fairness, accuracy and freedom from bias.  Wish everyone was taking it.  If I could tweet for a celebrity while Twitter lasted, aside from possibly getting to some fabulous parties (not at Silvers), I would hope to just help people think, not tweet, for themselves.

But am I alone thinking that twitter won’t be around forever (except in the archives)?

Just like Dennis Lillee would be showing me his old record collection right now (Sherbert, the Who…) I bet so too will Justin Bieber be showing his younger third wife his old list of tweets, while she has her finger wedged in her ear doing… something else…

 

***Just as an aside – watch this clip to see where I got the idea for the title – just substitute the word ‘strip’ for ‘tweet’ – it has given me endless entertainment.

 

And another thing... Here is our poster that we made this week about twitter - it shows how twitter is being embraced by individuals, media and emergency serivces in a crisis situation.  Many thanks to tara, Jess and Molly for their help in making it.




















References

Cross, M, 2011, Bloggerati, Twitterati: How Blogs and Twitter are Transforming Popular Culture, Praeger, viewed 5 December 2011, http://reader.eblib.com.au.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/(S(ilxqhwau52jsoxf1swhsgddd))/Reader.aspx?p=713477&o=132&u=g2pJ9qQPo2UEqFbavkWlXA%3d%3d&t=1354700453&h=09B70862CBF895C14D9C3AA992AD96EC3C05CA28&s=7280322&ut=405&pg=64&r=img&c=-1&pat=n#

Man 2 Man, 1986 Male Stripper, viewed 5 December 2012, uploaded to Youtube by Jake Vanek, 19 March 2009

Sagolla, Dom 2009, 140 Characters : A Style Guide for the Short Form, e-book, accessed 05 December 2012, <http://swin.eblib.com.au.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=469863>.

Turkle, Sherry 2011, Alone Together : Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, e-book, accessed 5 December  2012, <http://swin.eblib.com.au.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=684281>.

Image source: Author unknown, 1975, Dennis Lillee: fast bowler, viewed 5 December 2012, National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-vn3075746