I was introduced to Twitter earlier this year. I don't mean by that that I was such a Luddite I'd never heard of it before, in fact when the London riots were going on last summer I sat on my Hoxton balcony in the surreally brilliant sunshine and anxiously refreshed #hackneyriots over and over again, just to see if anything was coming my way (I will admit that this reaction was not 100% fearful but had a good measure of excitement thrown in, which is perhaps the topic of another bloggy unpicking). What I mean is that I started using Twitter as a fellow tweeter earlier this year - I'm studying for a Masters and this was one of the course requirements (long story) - and, quite simply, I fell in lurve.
I love Twitter. I love it for simple reasons, such as the constant stream of information, the enforced brevity, the fact that you can 'talk' directly to actual people you recognise and admire, but I also love it for complex reasons. I am an avid Facebook user, and being a total humblebrag cliche, I have a lot of friends on Facebook. They don't all share my sociopolitical views. In an ideal world I suppose I would wade into every single argument that I could wielding my righteous banner of fury and my scathing sword of rhetoric, but let's face it, I think my friend count would plummet faster than a stock market crash. Facebook, essentially, is social downtime - how you'd act in the pub with your mates, swapping drunken stories and baby photos, and remembering that one time at that festival when - oh look, here's a picture of it. Whose round is it?
Twitter is completely different. For a start, it feels much more anonymous in the shouting-into-a-void sense (although if you were using it as a shalabrity I concede it probably has the opposite effect), while at the same time far more globally connected. Most of my FB friends live in the same country I reside in. On Twitter I follow people tweeting from literally* all over the world. So, I love the complexity of that duality - your connections are being made devoid of knowing almost anything about the other side of the interaction, especially if you are not following each other, and yet those connections are being made despite this. Further, they are often being made either when you vehemently agree or violently disagree with the other twitterer. A duality within a duality. I like this kind of Chinese-box stuff, it makes my brain hurt, but in a good way, like the way your muscles hurt after a gym session.
Another thing I love about Twitter is that although it is essentially an extremely basic premise, you can actually use it to do whatever you want it to (yet another duality, I should write this shit down yo). What I mean is, you could be tweeting as an entirely fictional character, as a public persona, on behalf of a company, purely for social interaction, to network, to link or retweet, or, you can use it like me, as a soapbox. Which brings me back to Facebook. Although I am at heart a political beast and like nothing more than a good hearty rant, usually on the subjects of feminism, human rights, social justice and so forth, I have lost count of how many times one of my less politically-minded (or, let's face it, more laid-back) friends has come up to me and chosen argument-victim in the pub and basically told us, affectionately, to pack it in. While I will never pack it in in the pub (cue eyerolls of recognition from those who know me), on Facebook, well, it does seem appropriate to pack it in. There's only so much tub-thumping your FB friends want to hear. Most of them want to go back to drunken stories and baby photos - and you know what? I think that's just fine. I need that downtime too myself.
But on Twitter I can be as loudly and vociferously political as I damn well want. I can tweet my disgust to Todd Akin for his rape-based balderdash or WH Smith for their sexist magazine labelling, cement my solidarity with others fighting the good fight on the same rhetorical battle lines, and engage in thoughtful debate on, dare I say it, a higher intellectual plane than usually occurs on FB. This doesn't mean I think there is no dumbassed bottom-feeding mudslinging on Twitter, because of course there is one bajillion tons of that shit as well, but I can avoid it by choosing my interactions. And that feels, unsurprisingly, hugely empowering (NB I do NOT feel empowered by Facebook - but again this is the topic of another post). Twitter, with its strict use of handles and hashtags, channels political feeling, and works to galvanise people towards shared causes.
I'll give you one example: I mention WH Smith above - they are currently the target of a sustained campaign to get them to change their sexist magazine labelling (this is so tired I shouldn't have to explain it, but you know the deal - mags like Private Eye and National Geographic being put in a "Men's Interests" section, as if owning a vagina precludes one from being interested in either politics or anthropology (whereas as we know it's probably the opposite, AMIRITE)). This hasn't quite succeeded yet but the absolutely bloody brilliant part is that the same campaigns have already worked for Morrisons and Tesco! How fucking brilliant is that? You might call this armchair activism, but given that most actual activism appeals to all but the die-hard few, I'd say this is exactly what we need - this isn't just the mobilisation of the voice of the people, but the voice of the people actually being listened to and acted upon. For fucking once.
So, Twitter feels empowering? That's because it damn well is. And it's especially useful in the fight against patriarchy - of which more anon.
*Note correct usage, motherfuckers.
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