quote of the day

By alice | June 23, 2008

This one’s from a tweet (on Twitter) by Jackie:

Never follow your heroes on Twitter. They always disappoint you in the end.

There’s something about heroes, which can be almost anyone whose work you admire I suppose, that tricks us into thinking these people are perfect in every way, so we feel really disappointed when they aren’t. I used to feel really bad about deciding after years of reading someone’s work that there was something a bit fishy about it which I didn’t like, then checking that out if possible and confirming that yes, the person in question really did have Undesirable Personality Trait # 614 or whatever. I felt like I should ignore it and not care, what with perfection being so impossible, work-writing being a different thing from inner goodness and anyway how would I know to judge, not being flawless myself?

Now I just think it’s better to get to know people for real than admire them from afar.

However, I too read individuals of admirable knowledge and professional achievement on Twitter and, being a more immediate and personal kind of self-publishing than blogs, it definitely can reveal personal flaws with quite some impact. I’ve been quite appalled by some of the rubbish that apparently intelligent people can feel OK about broadcasting to thousands of “followers”. Given that you can’t edit your Twitter posts after the event, perhaps reputations will be ruined and relationships rearranged this way before too long? Drama! Who knows.

No wonder some people are so scared of blogging etc. Putting thoughts out there can certainly make you look an idiot. Oh yeah.

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7 Comments »

7 Responses to “quote of the day”

MJ Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 1:59 pm

And this is why I don’t Twitter either. First, my world isn’t using it, so to whom would I Tweet? Second, I’m opinionated and capable of offending at times. Third, I’ve seen some AMAZINGLY “too much information!” posts out there – posts that if I were the author I would want down and erased from human memory after the fact. This stuff can live forever, folks…

alice Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 3:08 pm

You’re right! As a person who waded into the first blog-o-wave in full innocence making every mistake out there, I have to say, right now I can’t remember why that seemed like such a good idea at the time. But hindsight is 20/20, especially on brand new risk-taking type stuff!

MJ Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 3:27 pm

I cringe when I read pretty much any posting about the blogger’s or Tweeter’s sex life – do you really want that out there? What about the other party? What about the ex-boyfriend who you are discussing in such medically precise detail? What about your Ex’s divorce lawyer? Sometimes too much is too much.

alice Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 3:33 pm

Penelope Trunk is a very unusual tweeter though :)

MJ Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 11:16 am

There is also a very literate, well written, but very intimate blog out there by a former stripper/English PhD that sometimes rather knocks me flat – gorgeous writing but my dear, did you REALLY want to tell the world that? Because now we all know about your fantasy, former lover, Ex, what you call your Ex’s “you know what” etc etc and since your pen name is slipping, more and more people in your daily life might also know….eeek. I’m just a private person that way.

So, what’s the big deal with Twitter? « La Vie Quotidienne Says:
August 11th, 2008 at 1:49 pm

[...] micro-blogging can sometimes damage one’s carefully cultivated public persona. Blogger Jackie Danicki (via Alice, because I do not follow Jackie Danicki’s tweets, which are protected) is of the view that it [...]

So, what’s the big deal with Twitter? at In vivo In vitro In silico Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 6:01 am

[...] micro-blogging can sometimes damage one’s carefully cultivated public persona! Blogger Jackie Danicki (via Alice, because I do not follow Jackie Danicki’s tweets, which are protected) is of the view that it [...]