The Twitter Rules

Last time I discussed Twitter on this site, I was making fun of it. I said that I didn't see the point of it, and I said that I would never start an account.

I lied.

I got an Twitter account sometime last fall, and I've noticed a number of benefits that weren't evident before I joined the site. For one, I like that I can follow publications and celebrities to get up-to-the-minute information on new stories, or new material from my favorite artists. I also like being able to share links instantly with friends without having to wait for them to check their Facebook profile. So yeah, it's not all bad.

Having said that, though, I must admit that I can only check up on Twitter periodically. If I go on too often, I usually just get frustrated. Why, you ask? Well, because most of the tweets I see on my timeline are bullsh*t. Now, this isn't a knock at any specific people that I follow (OK, maybe it is), but I just feel like a lot of people put inconsequential stuff on Twitter without realizing that no one cares at all. Twitter is supposed to be used as a social networking tool, but I find that far too many people use it just to write down all of their thoughts, as if Twitter were some sort of a public journal. Or the Internet's equivalent of talking to yourself out loud. I don't mean to be rude, but trust that neither I nor any of your other followers care that you're craving IHOP or that you lost your favorite pair of socks. That's not interesting. So, to help some of your hapless saps who tweet without any discretion, I have come up with three very simple rules to make your tweets more follow-friendly. I find that if your tweets fall outside of these three basic tenets, you're probably just typing nonsense. I call them "The Twitter Rules."

Why LeBron James Is A Bitch

Yesterday, I was online checking out new music and I saw something that caught my attention. Gucci Mane had a new song featuring Talib Kweli. If you know anything about hip-hop, you understand why this is a big deal. Kweli has made a career for himself by being a top-notch lyricist with socially conscious rhymes, while Gucci's rhymes are mostly about jewelry and not much else. As someone who's been following Kweli's career closely, I was truly disappointed. And I wasn't the only one; when he mentioned on Twitter last month that he might do a song with Gucci, a number of his fans got so upset that they unfollowed him. He might think that his fans are being close-minded, but I understand why they were bothered. For someone with Kweli's talent and skill, doing songs with a hack of an artist for the sake of some publicity and a nice paycheck is a slap in the face to the people who have been riding with him since day one. It's a middle finger to the people who know he's better than Gucci, and it almost tells them that he would rather dumb it down with rappers worse than him than display his skills on his own.

I'll give one more (weaker but still slightly appropriate) parallel. In the movie "The Godfather Part II", Mafia leader Michael Corleone is almost killed in an assassination attempt at his home. Although the attempt is unsuccessful, Michael draws the conclusion that the attempt had to have been carried out with the help of someone within his inner circle. Come to find out, the betrayer was his brother Fredo, who accidentally let some secret information slip to some people who wanted Michael dead. When Michael approaches Fredo, he grabs his face, kisses him, and tells him, "I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart." After that, Fredo is as good as dead to Michael, who acts as if Fredo never existed. Towards the end of the movie, Michael eventually welcomes Fredo back into his life. But then in the end, he has him killed.

What LeBron James did last night reminded me a little of both Talib Kweli and Fredo Corleone. Choosing Miami was like doing a song with Gucci Mane. It was a complete disregard for his skill, and he deferred to a lesser talent instead of creating a better product on his own. Leaving Cleveland was like Fredo betraying Michael. Although the intent may not have been malicious, he could have single-handedly destroyed an entire organization.

Which brings me to the title of this post: Why I think LeBron James is a bitch.