Why Twitter Doesn't Suck

A few years ago, I'd put up a post about how much I disliked Twitter. For those of you who won't read it, which I'm assuming is most of you, especially now that I'm giving you this shortcut, these were my main reasons for the anti-Twitter rampage:

• It was difficult to use and also sort of pointless.
• It showed me lots of random posts by people doing mundane stuff. 
• It didn't allow for adequate expression due to the character limit, which in turn resulted in people tweeting multiple times an hour, which again leads to my previous point. 
• Every time I replied to someone, it showed up as a new tweet.

After trying it out for a while, I decided it wasn't for me and simply stopped using it.

Then, over these summer holidays, I watched Heroes for the first time (yes, I'm many years behind on lots of TV shows. I only just started watching Buffy recently, after finishing Heroes). I loved the show and wanted to find out where else I could see Milo Ventimiglia and Zachary Quinto. I figured I could also follow them on facebook, but Milo doesn't seem to have a facebook page (although there is a fan page with at least a couple of creepily obsessive fans).

After a few moments of perplexity over what to do next, I remembered this little thing called Twitter, and it turned out that he was on it. So I decided to give the site another chance, and I'm glad I did.

Ventimiglia tweets often enough to keep things interesting but not so much that it gets annoying.
Also, get this: he actually replies! Especially when he's on a flight, apparently. There was this one time he was my entire news feed because he was replying to tweets for about 5 hours straight. Not that any of his followers were complaining, I'm sure. I mean, seriously, replying to so many people instead of taking a nap or something - how very nice of him!


Stephen Amell and Neil Gaiman also use Twitter

We all know Neil Gaiman's got a wonderful way with words. His tweets are funny and entertaining, and since he's Gaiman, even when you see promotional tweets, you're not thinking "Oh god, stop!" Instead, you're probably thanking him for gracing you with information like where you can get signed copies of his books and so on.

Stephen Amell is someone I started following on facebook after watching Arrow, and while I didn't expect him to be exactly like the character he plays, I was pleasantly surprised to discover how funny he is. Recently, I saw that he posts more often on Twitter. One more reason for me to not give up on this site.


The 140 character limit is actually rather fun

Of all the annoying traits Twitter possesses, this one was initially at the top of my list. However, with all the precis writing in school and flash fiction in college, I decided I was more than capable of turning it into a sort of challenge.

Oh wait, to Barney, the challenge would have been to use more than 140 characters. Hmm, I really didn't think that one through. Ah, whatever. Those pictures are staying right there.

This reminds me of how funny NPH's first few tweets were. Before he understood the character limit, sentences would just stop abruptly, often mid-word, if I remember right. I'd like to put up screenshots, but there's no way I'm scrolling to the very beginning of his page (especially with my aggravatingly slow internet).

Coming back to what I was saying before the NPH distraction, I swore to always use exactly 140 characters to make the most of every post. Even if I really didn't need to. I discovered it was fun and not so hard to do. Also, when I'd done it the first few times, no one seemed to care, and for a while I'd slipped into using fewer characters than I could (gasp!)
But then I reminded myself that no one really cares what you do on twitter most of the time unless you're famous, and that there was one person who cared about sticking it to the character limit: me.

I've learnt that a 140 character tweet is called a twoosh. And that's the last time I'm using that word because it sounds incredibly stupid. Way stupider than "tweet".


Quick scrolling

Since there's a character limit, even though people tweet often, posts are really short. This means you can quickly scroll down without wasting time on uninteresting things. I don't follow too many people, so a few seconds of scrolling shows me the entire day's new tweets.


#Hashtags

Some hashtags are pretty crazy, and it's a lot of fun to see the different wacky things people have to say about them. #foodafilm and #dressamovie were a couple I really liked. Okay, they were the only ones I bothered to look at, but the point is, they were fun.
That being said, some people really need to stop using hashtags with every other word. Unless it's in a parody like the one with Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake:

  #funnyvideo #LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

So, those are all the reasons why, although my problems with Twitter haven't disappeared and are still quite valid, I've reversed my general opinion of the site. I rather like it now.

Also, did I mention that Milo Ventimiglia uses Twitter and replies to lots of messages?

Fear Itself

Fear rules us all. It controls our lives. Sometimes it's in big, significant ways but more often, it's in the little routines and habits we've internalized to a point where we don't even realize how scared we are. Fear of being caught for doing something, fear of the consequences of not doing something, fears based on variables you can control... and those you can't.

People may say it's all in the mind, but it can also take on tangible forms. (I mean actual things, not the messed up stuff you see in horror movies). And what's the scariest and most omnipotent of them all? 

If you're thinking spiders, you're wrong (unless you have arachnophobia, in which case I totally empathize because I'm on a similar track). 

It's cockroaches. Particularly flying cockroaches.

The ones that can't fly are not terrifying to me any more. Over the years, I've learnt to suck it up and smack the damn hellspawn with a shoe. But if they can fly, that's a completely different story. It's a horrifying nightmare straight out of hell. Nay, more like pure hell itself. Here's a comparison to show just how bad it is:

Just like some people don't cry when they're sad because they think it makes them look weak, I try to be as brave as possible when faced by a flying cockroach. I may not scream (too loudly) when I see one. This is mostly because I'm worried that people will call me a baby. And that I'll then hit them for teasing me about a very real fear (but not before they've killed the cockroach for me, obviously).

P.S. I may or may not believe everything in the Bible, but I totally blame Noah for this.  

Jungle Book Fever

Watched The Jungle Book a couple of days ago and have been in fangirl mode ever since. Here's a TJB-inspired picture I made. Hopefully there'll be more soon.

Also, Happy Earth Day!

UPDATE: It's been a month since I said I'd draw some more pictures, so here are a few I made today.

I'd had a very specific image of Kaa in my head for a long time. Unfortunately, when I tried to transfer that onto paper, it looked nothing like what I'd imagined.

I tried making a picture on my computer too (thank you, Clipart leaves and trees) but to my greatest dismay, both my attempts have ended up looking like they were drawn by 10 year olds. In fact, 10 year old me has made nicer pictures. But I absolutely deserve points for trying.

Shere Khan. And the whole fire thing, you know.

And a brighter picture of the first one I drew.

  
I also wanted to draw Baloo and Bagheera, but after what happened with Kaa, I don't really feel like it right now. I might try some other time, though.