Twitter Jumps the Snark

Last week, The New York Times reported on the story of Daryl Eisenberg, a casting director who was conducting auditions for "Gay Bride of Frankenstein," which will be part of the New York Musical Theater Festival this fall. While doing so, she issued tweets in real time to her 1,800-plus followers about those auditioning before her. A sample follows:

If we wanted to hear it in a different way, don't worry, we'll ask.

If you are going to sing about getting on your knees, might as well do it and crawl toward us...right?

Perhaps anticipating criticism for her unvarnished opinions, she issued a preemptive tweet:

There is NO rule/guideline against Twitter/Facebook/MySpace/Friendster. Freedom of speech. Ever heard of it?

After criticism from the Actors' Equity Association, the union that represents theater performers, that such a use of Twitter was inappropriate, Ms. Esienberg had a change of heart. She reported that there would be no more tweets coming from the audition room.

Since its inception, one of the most common complaints about Twitter has been the banal nature of its content. The average person announcing what he or she is having for dinner or what was watched on TV may not make compelling reading, but is, by nature, benign and not threatening. A growing number, however, use Twitter to grind their axes or to state caustic opinions about others. The aforementioned episode of Ms. Eisenberg is just one recent example.

In person, Ms. Eisenberg most likely didn't have the desire to break etiquette and confront the auditioning actors with these comments. But with Twitter, the ease of communication and its de facto broadcast ability have proven an irresistible temptation for many to say things behind a digital veil that would otherwise go unspoken. Someone who would normally be polite in person instead heeds the siren call of snark, a word defined by Urban Dictionary as a combination of "snide" and "remark" that also has a connotation of the unwarranted and nasty criticism of others.

This is an extreme example of what can be called the "Coti Law of Snark," named for the author of this essay in a moment of egotistical weakness. This states that there is a positive correlation between the amount of snark a message can contain and three factors: the ease of communication, the number of people to whom one is communicating, and the degree of anonymity provided. Depending on how these factors interact likely signals the snark potential of one's message.

Ease of Communication
The simpler it is to convey one's message, the less likely that any serious thought was given to its content. Thus, language that may later be considered regrettable ends up making its way into public discourse due to the lack of preparation required by that medium.

Audience Size
The greater the number of people to whom the message is intended, the more likely one will feel the pressure to perform or impress. Because, when communicating to a larger audience, whether in person or online, there is a sense that the message needs to be embellished with inappropriate content to hold the listeners' attention or to keep their loyalty.

Anonymity
The more one can preserve his or her anonymity when delivering a message, the more likely that snark at some point will be conveyed. Being able to say things without attribution allows the freedom to say what's on one's mind without significant consequence.

So how do these factors interact with one another over different methods of communication? What follows is a table with the relative rankings of each factor on a scale of one to three with the higher numbers representing more of that particular attribute.

Letter
Because of the time it takes time to write down one's thoughts, address the envelope, and deliver it to post, a letter is a poor conduit of snark. The time invested in a letter most often lends itself to more reasoned speech as it is almost always addressed to an individual and has little or no anonymity.

Email
This medium can encompass many points on the spectrum. An email composed quickly and sent to a group list has the capacity to contain snark. But one must pause momentarily to fill in to whom it is being sent as well as the subject line, which is perhaps enough time to re-gather his or her thoughts and to reconsider the content before sending it along. Interestingly, replies to emails are more susceptible to snarky and regrettable commentary simply because it doesn't require any fields to complete -- it's message can be sent almost instantaneously.

Text Message/Face-to-Face/Phone
Speaking to another individual, whether in person or by phone or by text message, occupies a snarky middle ground. The ease of communication is great, but there is only a specific person to whom one is speaking and there is no anonymity. The potential for snark is there, but it is generally limited and requires the listener's cooperation.

Speech
When giving a speech to an audience, there isn't any anonymity and one usually must make some preparation as to what will be said. But there is an element of performance when speaking to groups -- the attention of those to whom one is speaking demands constantly to be sated. The chances of an off-the-cuff remark or an inopportune attempt at humor increases significantly.

Twitter
Once the application used to issue a tweet is up and running, sharing one's opinion with others is as simple as typing and pressing the ENTER key. This is the worst of both worlds: a message is easily composed and sent, and the number of people who have the opportunity to read said message can number in the thousands thus requiring a "performance." At first glance, there doesn't seem to be any anonymity. After all, followers know from whose account the tweets are emanating. But the connection is tenuous: someone who has more than 1,800 followers like Ms. Eisenberg obviously doesn't know most of them at all and vice versa.

The larger issue, regardless of the medium we use to communicate, is simply remembering the necessity to respect one another both in words and deeds. This is not to say that criticism or harsh commentary directed at others do not have their place. Rather, it comes down to intent. Is the message aiming for a cheap laugh at another's expense? Is it a sign of insecurity that someone else must be degraded to elevate the stature of oneself? To paraphrase Shakespeare, the fault lies not in Twitter, but in ourselves.

A Twitter Snapshot in Time

A new Web site called Twitcaps offers a unique perspective of those using Twitter and the content they share with others. Its FAQ page describes its service as follows:

Twitcaps is most easily described as Real-Time Image Search Engine / Browser. Twitcaps allows you to search, browse and capture the latest images posted to Twitter via any of the popular Twitter image services (Twitpic, yFrog, Twitgoo, etc). From the Twitcaps interface, you may capture an image for later use, re-tweet the image on your own Twitter feed, or share the image on any number of social linking services.

One visit to Twitcaps makes this clear. The home page displays a grid of thumbnails that have been uploaded to a Twitter image service within the past thirty seconds. Placing the cursor over any of the thumbnails provides more detailed information such as who sent the image and the associated tweet. A click on the thumbnail provides a closeup. The thumbnails can be refreshed manually by clicking on the Twitcaps logo or automatically by selecting Auto-Refresh from the global navigation.

The insight Twitcaps gives into the average Twitter user -- or, at least, the average user that shares visual information -- is perhaps more informative than any of the numerous online surveys that attempt to define that demographic. So what do these users deem important enough to share with their followers? An unscientific evaluation after days of viewing countless thumbnails showed a general grouping of images into five categories. In order of those most encountered, they are as follows:

Food
Those who use Twitter to the fullest extent throughout the day tend to share their gastronomical choices with the world. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks -- it doesn't matter. An image of a meal about to be devoured is de riguer on Twitter. Sometimes its main purpose is to show the restaurant at which one is eating, usually noted by its name on a cocktail napkin or menu cover. Most often, whether due to the lighting or image resolution, whatever being pictured generally looks unappetizing to anyone except the person snapping the photo.

Self-Portraits
The visual equivalent of what Twitter is all about. Not content to live within the constraint of 140 characters to answer the question of "what are you doing?", many embellish their tweets with a picture of themselves. Usually taken with a cell phone, this typically involves the ubiquitous social media pose -- the awkward angle looking down at the face with the arm extended to the edge of the frame. A popular variation is the mirror shot composed in a bathroom, sometimes with a gratuitous shot of the toilet in the background thrown in for good measure.

Cats
With many owners who treat their pets as a genuine part of the family, it comes as no surprise that images of four-legged companions dominate Twitter. But although it is generally believed that there are more dog owners than cat owners, images of our feline friends undoubtedly take precedence. There is little variation: either the cat (or kitten) is asleep, or on its back, a pose that many owners believe is unique to their pet, so it must be shared with others. From time to time, a yawning cat with teeth bared is added to the mix to show how "ferocious" a furry feline can be. Their cuteness, however, is undeniable and resistance to that fact is generally futile.

Celebrities
These are usually stock photos taken from Web sites and sent to one's followers. It's the most basic form of idol worship, and its subjects range from all areas of popular culture with those from music, sports, and movies the most prevalent. They comprise the most unimaginative contributions to the Twitter community as the photos are almost never taken by the individual tweeting it. One would think that most come from the younger Twitter users, the same ones who read TMZ or watch Access Hollywood. Perhaps that explains the preponderance of Jonas Brothers -- together or individually -- at all times of the day.

Sex
Surprisingly, this is not as common a subject matter as one might expect, especially considering the prevalence and perversity of pornography on the Web. There seems to be little softcore, let alone hardcore, erotica to be seen. It's almost as if users are informally adhering to a PG-13 standard. The raciest imagery tends to be those of indulgent kisses and shots of cleavage taken as a self-portrait. Bulges of other anatomical parts also make an appearance from time to time for both sexes. One wonders if this category will grow as spam continues to make inroads on Twitter.

Overall, anyone looking for excitement or titillation from Twitcaps will probably be disappointed. Instead, it provides a valuable anthropological insight by demonstrating the most mundane aspects of our lives. This is how we live: everyday banality with moments of excitement and levity that sometimes appear when it's least expected.

Ignoring Your Friends on Twitter

An intriguing new Twitter application, Muuter, recently made its debut. It allows users to ignore anyone they are following on Twitter for a limited amount of time. The target audience? Anyone who has a friend on Twitter who is asking too many questions, sharing too much of his or her daily minutia, or providing an ongoing commentary that one cares little about. The Muuter Help page offers this explanation:

We've all been there: two of your friends start an argument, or someone is at an event and they NEED to tweet everything back, or going phone-picture-crazy. Whatever the reason, they seem to be all over your timeline, jumping at your screen.

Not to mention that if you do it manually and unfollow the -temporarily- loud twitterers, you risk forgetting to follow them back again.

So here is muuter to help you. With muuter you can tell us to mute your friend for some hours, and we'll take care of the rest.

As technology has advanced in the modern era, the intimacy and immediacy of how we communicate with others continues to increase. Along with that, however, has been the risk of information overload, sometimes referred to as infomania. This malady is described on Wikipedia as "the debilitating state of information overload, caused by the combination of a backlog of information to process (usually in email), and continuous interruptions from technologies like phones, instant messaging, and email."

Shutting off or reducing communication with others every so often is necessary for one's mental well-being. Multitasking over different media, while praised by most employers as a way to increase productivity, has actually been proven to be debilitating to one's mental acuity over time. But to focus on a particular task, a person runs the risk of offending friends and co-workers who are expecting immediate access to one's attention.

The traditional forms of mass communication are impersonal and thus easy to ignore without any ramifications. If the radio or television becomes an obstreperous presence, one can simply turn them off without offending the broadcaster, who is none the wiser and does not care about the identity of specific individuals listening in the first place.

Communicating by telephone offered a different challenge to ignoring one's friends. For many years, the only foolproof way was not to answer any incoming calls. But that ran the risk of missing calls from those with whom one actually does want to communicate. Answering machines allowed the screening of calls, but it wasn't until the advent of Caller ID did it become simple and generally accepted to choose selectively with whom one wants to speak.

The advent of the Internet offers its own challenges. With email, one can either close the application that gathers the messages or simply choose to read them at a later time. It is implicit to email that the communication is not necessarily immediate; offense is not given easily if messages sit in the inbox unread. In any event, it is rare that an acquaintance can send so many emails at one time to cause such annoyance.

Now, in this age of instant communication, ignoring others presents a more delicate dilemma. Twitter, in particular, is at once both passive and insidious with its constant stream of messages whose mere presence can cause distraction. Controlling this stream by un-following others, however, carries with it the risk of hurt feelings or misinterpretation. Up until now, the only alternative was to turn off the Twitter stream completely, which runs the risk of missing a tweet that one desires to read.

So now, with the help of Muuter, the solution to this conundrum is available to all. With its use always on a temporary basis, the chances of offending others are limited; it is practically undetectable by those being targeted. Infomania is reduced, however little, for the time being. Perhaps this is a sign of Twitter emerging as a more mature technology. It has become so popular that ways must be found to ignore one's own friends who use it.