all your empty words had an impact

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“And empty words are evil.”

 

Homer

 

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“It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.”

 

George Orwell, 1984

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Tweets.

 

twitter conversationThanks to Trump … tweeting has become a daily discussion whether you have a twitter account or not. And along those lines there comes a fairly absurd discussion about how tweets define the ‘new world of communication.’

 

It is almost like no one understands the difference between content creation and amplifying content.

 

This is going to be hyperbolic generalization … but …Twitter does not exist, or thrive, without existing content created elsewhere.

 

Tweets amplify views, opinions, attitudes, thoughts and sometimes addendums to existing content. And by content I mean it doesn’t have to be articles or written things … it can be movies, speeches, demonstrating people, etc.

 

Bottom line … someone has to do something before twitter can play a role.

 

Let’s call it stimulus response if you want.

I need a stimulus before I can have a twitter response.

 

But we act like tweets exist in some vacuum or that  real words and thoughts can go away because now we have tweets to guide what we should say and think.

 

This is crazy.

Fucking crazy.

 

Let me explain a little on this.stimulus-response-big-ass-gap-freedom-to-choose

 

Tweeting is a response to content.

 

Therefore, simplistically, a tweeter is a commenter and not a creator.

Twitter represents a massive commenter section of the world in which most do not engage in a dialogue but rather voice a monologue in response to some content <content being an article, an event, a show, a meeting, etc.>.

 

Original content is offered and a tweet is generated <or tweets>.

Some people call this “a monologue.” I will call it “commenting on content.”

 

 

twitter 1 response comment content

 

From there a triangular relationship is created. Tweet responses to the original tweeter and to the original content.

There is rarely a dialogue, in the traditional sense, just comments thrown back and forth.

 

twitter 2 content response tweets comment

 

And, finally, if the twitter universe expands in commenting enough, a follow-up piece of content is created to complete the communication loop … or diamond shape … in which tweets bounce back and forth between content simply commenting on what someone else has created.

 

twitter 3 new content response tweets

 

When the twitter universe embraces a topic it feeds upon itself  where original content is spun out discussing tweets themselves <basically content on commenting>, content derived from the original content and possibly new original content spawned by where the twitter universe ranges on the topic.

 

While that is a generalization of Twitter and tweeting I make the point to … well … point out that Trump is a commenter of content and not a creator of content.

 

Okay.

 

Let me resay that … TODAY he is solely a commenter but in a couple of weeks when will own a shitload of content.

 

But, you know what? Other than the content ownership Trump will assume soon … a lot of older people use twitter exactly the same way – monologues and commenting.

 

<I make that point so when some banal comment is made on TV about how confessions of an ad twitter were people‘Twitter will be the new way to do things’ we may want to remind ourselves that this is older people talking to older people about how to communicate with older people>

 

 

Anyway.

 

So, for today, Trump is a vapid thinker who expresses his views on other people’s real thinking in 140 characters or less <Bad!>. In the twitter world he is a vapid ‘loud mouth‘.

 

Vapid is the key word here. Not just for Trump but for tweets in general.

We should more often than not think of tweets as ‘full words’ but rather ‘empty words’ … and not get confused.

 

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emp·ty word

noun

 

plural noun: empty words

  1. a word that has only a grammatical function, and no meaning in itself (for example, the infinitive marker to in English).

 

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To normalize a tweet as ‘full words’ does words, and thinking, a massive injustice.

 

Shit.

To normalize tweets as real communication does communication injustice.

 

Let’s be clear.

 

I am all for simplifying communications.

 

All for it.

But.

 

Effective communication means effectively communicating — in 140 characters or 140 PowerPoint slides or in 140 pages or in 140 words.

 

Effective communications means effectively using words — where one letter can be the difference between “the Favorite” <makbul> and “the Executed” <maktul>.

 

<makbul and maktul is of Arabic origin and is Turkish>

 

Yeah.

Effective communication can teeter upon one letter.

 

One letter.

Morality and mortality.

 

One letter.

Wield and yield.

 

I have called it the burning space between one letter and the next.

 

 

An incredibly small space which can burn with meaning.

 

Empty a word of the critical letter and it can burn with the wrong meaning.

 

Empty a conversation of the necessary words and it can burn with the wrong meaning.

 

empty words almost echo withinEmpty the dialogue of real thought and it can burn with the wrong meaning.

 

Empty words are truly evil … and I do not use that word, evil, lightly.

 

Empty words destroy truth.

 

Empty words destroy effective communication.

 

Empty words destroy facts.

 

And maybe that is why I laugh out loud, painfully, when I hear someone suggest that “twitter policy” is the new generation’s way <or at least Trump’s way> of doing things — of communicating.

 

That is not only funny it is also stupid.

 

Tweets are just that … tweets. They are comments on other people’s content. They do not depict policy or true original thinking but rather comments on something original.

 

Twitter is a great social tool.

twitterati inspiration

It can amplify the best, and worst, content available.

 

It can amplify the best, and worst, of people.

 

It seeks out the cracks in … well … anything … and expands the crack to a crevasse so that additional tweets can fill the void with whatever opinions one may have.

 

But, please, please don’t ever suggest 140 characters will define original content in any meaningful way – especially the content of a presidency.

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Written by Bruce