I could not sleep last night. Albanian TV was incomprehensible but just about kept me awake. I was unable to tune into a German comedy channel which normally does the trick. I tried reading an editorial by my new friend Roger from the ShareSoc, I tried watching Olympics weightlifting (men and women) and swimming – even that failed, though it was crushingly dull. And so I found myself tapping away surfing the internet and found myself looking at what was trending on twitter. I am told by SEO consultants to look at this every day and write an article about something in vogue. But who Justin Bieber is shagging does not interest me. The truth is I am not actually sure who Justin Bieber is. What I write about is what interests me and thus, almost by definition, will never trend on twitter.
What does trend seems to come in four categories. The temporary category is #Go(insert a name of a British Athlete about to win Bronze in a sporting event you had never heard of until yesterday). A perennial feature is #celebrity (insert a name of someone who is famous who I will almost certainly have never heard of). Then there is the topical news item #name/company – this is often whichever evil capitalist is being publically flayed on that day. Finally there is #20list – a spontaneous combustion in which tweeters discuss 20 people they want to shag/meet/kill or 20 experiences they wish to have (often involving shagging, gluttony and other deadly sin and/or celebs I have never heard of).
Non tweeps (I think that is the technical term for those of us who tweet) might, by now, think that twitter is, like Facebook, a forum only for complete morons. They would be wrong. There are a lot of morons who tweet utter drivel. That is a given. However on twitter you follow only who you want. If you are into spuds you follow my new friends ( who follow me) from the Potato council of Britain, @thepotatogirls for all the “gossip and news” from that world. Since i am of Irish descent and sometimes struggle to get my roast spuds as crisp as they should be that is one for me. Or go follow another new twitter pal of mine, @apponline if you want a stream of tweets about Kitchen appliances. Whatever floats your boat. And I find that there are quite a lot of folk tweeting some very interesting stuff indeed. It is a medium I like.
Facebook , on the other hand, is only for morons and dull ones at that. It emerged last week that 5% of facebook accounts are duplicates. I assume that this for folks so tedious that the only person who will “friend” them to swap dull photos with is themselves. My only surprise was that this was just 5%.
Back to twitter. Last night a trending topic was #Christmas. Hell’s teeth it was August 3rd – it was only six weeks ago that I stopped having nightmares about the trauma of serving up less than crisp roast potatos last December 25th. If @thepotatogirls wish to get in touch they know where I am. When does anyone start thinking about Christmas? I know there is that loon somewhere in Britain who takes the Slade classic literally and tucks into a festive meal and crackers 365 days a year. Oddly that is a meal for one. Can’t think why. But for the rest of us? Surely no-one is yet buying presents, sending cards, planning the festive meal yet? Let alone discussing it all on twitter. I suppose it could go down as a collective bout of extreme forward planning.
In the end I went and read up a bit on Virgil and Albania. I somehow suspect that is a topic that will not be trending on twitter.