schmevil

This month I've been spending a lot of my free time tweeting about racism and sexism in comics. I've spent the last week and a half arguing with Erik Larsen directly. Twitter is such a time sink for me. I've got access to intelligent and admirable people, as well as deplorable ones. I can spend hours reading up on the unfolding disaster in the Gulf, or talking about DC Comics' treatment of characters of colour. It's incredible for the scope and nature of access it grants and encourages. I mean, I'm talking back and forth with a comics publisher, and sometimes when I follow cool people like Jay Smooth, they follow me back. (HOLY SHIT, HOLY SHIT, FANGASM!)

But I think what I like best about Twitter is how simple a tool it is. Obviously the code is deterministic, insofar as how people are able to talk to each other, access information, etc. But it's downright bare bones, as social networking sites go. I really think that the simplicity of Twitter is what makes it so flexible and organic. Because Twitter is just a 140 character miniblog, with only a few additional organizational functions (direct messages, @replies, hashtags), users are freer to do whatever the hell they want with the service.

Contrast with technocratic Facebookialand, where users have less and less control over what information they share, and how it's shared. Where, it seems to me, Facebook is working hard to shape your experience as a user, so as best to monetize it. Of course this could all be my base hatred of Facebook as an organization, and my affection for Twitter showing. idek

***

Anyway, have a poem: