Martin Crownover

Clichéd as it is, let me start this with a few definitions:

Mundane -adjective

2. common; ordinary; banal; unimaginative.

Uninteresting -adjective

1. arousing no interest or attention or curiosity or excitement.

Stupid -adjective

2. characterized by or proceeding from mental dullness; foolish; senseless.

Mundane, uninteresting, and stupid. These three words perfectly describe one of the newest internet cesspools, Twitter.

If you took MySpace, dropped it into a special machine designed to wring out everything but the superficiality, narcissism, and lust for attention, and then you took what was left, put it into some bullets, and then fired them at the internet with an automatic machine gun, you'd have Twitter. And probably a few dead bystanders.

For anyone out there who is not familiar with Twitter, it's a lot like having a blog, except instead of taking the time to think about and actually write a cohesive collection of sentences, your updates consist of one-liners and simple thoughts. To better illustrate my description, here are some example Twitter entries:

"its already 10:30???!?!? when did that happen??"

I dunno, maybe while you were sitting there posting stuff on Twitter?

"Speaking of food.....lunchtime!"

Nobody was speaking of food.

"At the hospital waiting on Labor and Delivery."

It really sounds like you've got more important things to do than Twitter.

"Why do I hear windchimes in the office?"

I dunno, but you should get that checked out.

"confused by backpack"

Average Twitter user.

"I can't stop eating DORITOS!!! mmmmmm"

Perhaps the first advertisement on Twitter?

"i started a juice fast yesterday... i now think my stomach is eating itself!"

Yes, that rare feeling us humans call "hunger".

Twitter users call these small messages "tweets." I refuse to do that.

There's a reason why I don't speak aloud every little random thought that goes through my head, let alone post them in my blog. It's because, like everyone else, most everything I think about throughout the day (and most of the stuff I do, for that matter) isn't interesting enough to share with people. And the same goes for everyone else, regardless of who you are.

Nobody cares if you're eating Doritos. Nobody cares about your momentary confusing over a backpack.  Nobody cares if you hear windchimes in your office. These things are not important.

And yet, thanks to Twitter, the internet is bombarded with a constant stream of similar garbage.  I honestly can't think of a bigger waste of time - sitting around posting and reading things on Twitter makes a full day of World of Warcraft seem like an exceedingly productive thing to do. It gives a bad (worse) name to social networking on the internet, and cheapens somewhat more legitimate outlets of information, like blogging.

Twitter annoys me worse than lolcats, and I think that given the chance, I would purge every memory of its existence from the collective consciousness of mankind. If you use Twitter, please just stop. You're ruining the internet for everyone.