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Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Unpersonals: We’re All Atwitter About Twitter

filed under: Dating 2.0, Unpersonals, Web Sex Index by Lux Nightmare

Unpersonals. You know them. You probably even have an account on one of them, complete with sassy photos, lots of comments, and a multipage friends list. And of course, you’d never, ever use that kind of site to meet someone. Or stalk someone. Right?

Of course right.

We’ve written before about Twitter, discussing its (lack of) sex-related postings. And we’re certainly not the only ones taking notice of the site: whether they’re loving it, hating it, or somewhere in between, the kids of 2.0 are all, well, twittering about Twitter.

Yet in all the back and forth about Twitter, no one’s touched on the most important issue: is Twitter an Unpersonal?

Any confusion about Twitter is understandable: as simple as the site’s concept is (text Twitter, Twitter texts your friends), we’re still dealing with the fact that it’s a brand, spanking new medium that we’re working out the kinks of. Sure, there have been web2txt sites before (hi, Dodgeball!), but none quite so free form, so broad, as Twitter.

What, exactly, is Twitter? It’s kinda like LiveJournal in 140 characters or less. It lets you post whatever you want, as often as you want. But Twitter’s more aggressive, more invasive, more adamantly public, than LiveJournal: rather than simply posting to the Internet and waiting for traffic, tweets hurl their way towards subscribers’ cellphones, finding an audience far beyond the reaches of the Internet.

So maybe Twitter is like Dodgeball, except Dodgeball doesn’t allow such a free flow of information. Dodgeball controls its broadcasts, only texting users information about where their friends are (as opposed to their friend’s innermost thoughts, feelings, or information about future plans).

So Twitter is a free form platform for broadcasting (a very condensed version of) whatever you want to say to the web, as well as the desktops and pockets of any interested parties.

But is it an Unpersonal?

Meeting people through Twitter is tricky. Unlike most other Unpersonals, there’s a cost (and not just a social one) to adding the wrong person as a friend. Friending an overactive Twitterphile may result in waking up to a phone overloaded with texts (a shock that can be unpleasantly repeated mid-month, upon the receipt of your phone bill) — so it’s understandable why some might be cautious about who they let into their network of tweets.

But let’s say you do manage to penetrate the Twitter network of someone you don’t know, or only sort of know: can Twitter facilitate your passive-aggressive courtship?

Here’s where the LiveJournal/Dodgeball mashup analogy comes in handy: because in spite of its bright and shiny swagger, in spite of how different and new it is, Twitter’s ultimately just those same old social networking tools remixed and wrapped up in new packaging. Twitter provides you with a feeling of connection, of closeness, to someone you don’t really know — and it allows you to build that connection while avoiding the awkwardness of admitting that you’re really just trying to get laid (or rather, “meet that special someone”). There’s something very personal about receiving someone’s tweets: and, in the right circumstances, it’s possibility to use that to bridge to something larger, something IRL.

We’re still figuring out Twitter: still exploring its possibilities, its limits, and (perhaps) its internal etiquette. We don’t quite know how to use it, yet, but we’re learning: and the more we learn, the better able Twitter will be to facilitate our hook ups, make outs, and get togethers.

Oh, and p.s.? Because Twitter archives all of a user’s tweets on their (very public) user page, and because you can receive someone’s tweets even if they haven’t listed you back as a friend, um, yeah: Twitter is super good for stalking people. I’m just sayin’.

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