Twitter: From the Cool to the Completely Insane

I’ve learned several surprising things in the two days since asking, “What’s so appealing about Twitter?” Among them:

1. Lots of celebrities use Twitter and if you follow enough of them, some will eventually start following you back. This is the case with Yoko Ono, who not only supposedly reads my Tweets now but who has also sent me a direct message via the site. Now, I’m almost positive she uses a third-party site to auto-contact all of her followers–but she also sent along another, more special note just for me. Being the huge Beatles fan that I am, the experience of hearing from John Lennon’s widow has left me feeling a little star-struck. I’ll admit I’m a little embarrassed by that.
   If you’re interested, you can search the Web for reliable lists of celebrity Twitterers, but some of my favorites are Shaquille O’Neal, Virgin Group Chairman Richard Branson and, of course, the truly amazing John Cleese.
2. Experienced Twitterers can come up with really clever ways to say a lot while staying within the meager 140-character limit. That might not sound too impressive to some of you social-networking veterans who have mastered succinctness in your status messages, but if you’re a journalist, you’ll understand that brevity–effective brevity–is nothing less than a fine art. There is a reason they call it “the soul of wit.” Twitter even has awards for the best “short content” creators.
   There are, of course, some Twitterers who haven’t fully embraced the concept of brevity just yet. If 140 characters isn’t enough for them, they’ll just continue their message in a second, third, fourth or even fifth post. Yes, I’m looking at you, Dr. Drew.
3. Congress Tweets. And texts. And chats. And… does pretty much everything with their phones except take notes on important events? Here’s an excerpt from the The Washington Post‘s article on what, exactly, our leaders were doing during President Barack Obama’s address to Congress last night:

President Obama spoke of economic calamity and war last night in that solemn rite of democracy, the address to the joint session of Congress. And lawmakers watched him with the dignity Americans have come to expect of their leaders: They whipped out their BlackBerrys and began sending text messages like high school kids bored in math class.

“One doesn’t want to sound snarky, but it is nice not to see Cheney up there,” Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) announced as Obama entered the chamber.

“I did big wooohoo for Justice Ginsberg,” Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) broadcast, misspelling the name of the ailing Supreme Court justice. McCaskill could be seen applauding with BlackBerry in one hand.

“Capt Sully is here — awesome!” announced Rep. John Culberson (R-Tex.), spotting the US Airways pilot in the gallery.

Then there was Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.), in whose name this text message was sent at about the time the president spoke of the need to pull the country together: “Aggie basketball game is about to start on espn2 for those of you that aren’t going to bother watching pelosi smirk for the next hour.” A few minutes later, another message came through: “Disregard that last Tweet from a staffer.”

Wow. Seriously? My students pay far better attention in class! And as special as I think each and every one of their smiling faces happens to be, none of these students is ever going to have the effect on my taxes, bank account and general livelihood that Congress will.

Do we need to start confiscating their cell phones?