The easiest way to identify a douchebag on Twitter is by the “verified account” badge on his or her profile. This is a fact. Because of the crushing avalanche of poo that is Pop Culture, I tend not to follow many famous people. It is rather like getting all dressed up for a fabulous exclusive party only to arrive and observe that everyone’s drinking malt liquor and eating wingettes. Such a profound disappointment, that. But, as it turns out, there’s enough dope people I consider worth following, with varying degrees of Fail. I promise more than half of them you won’t give a shit about, but walk with me anyway.
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Posts Tagged ‘twitter’
Rating the famous & famous-ish I follow on Twitter
To the 8 Black Gays that need to chill:
When I initially posted “The 8 Black Gays you will meet in your lifetime” it was meant as a response to Gawker’s “Handy Guide To All Gay Men”, not a social experiment, and certainly not something to be taken seriously. But, wow, did some of you kids take it seriously! A lot of the response has been great, since most people chuckled and kept it moving. But how long did it take for the Reactive Online Intelligentsia to get bent out of shape? Not very. Although I said I wouldn’t acknowledge the bitching and whining and moaning and misguided attempts to kick knowledge on this topic on my website, it appears that this has escalated to a Very Serious Matter, so now we must box. I hope your arms are long enough to go with me, shorty.
5 shorties for Dilla.
If you’re following me on Tumblr (or Twitter at least) then you already know I posted 5 on-the-fly mini-mixes of Dilla’s work in honor of his birthday (one was pushed to today). In the tragic event you missed any of this, here they all are, in order, with (gasp!) tracklistings. Enjoy.
PART I: Phat Kat “Don’t Nobody Care About Us”, Q-Tip “Wait Up”, Four Tet “As Serious As Your Life (Jay Dee Remix)”, Oh No “Move”, J Dilla feat. Black Thought “Reality Check”, J Dilla feat. Common “E=MC2″, A Tribe Called Quest “Get A Hold”, MED “Push”, De La Soul “Verbal Clap”, Slum Village feat. Q-Tip “Hold Tight (Remix)”.
On Haiti, compassion and Twitter-shaming.
I have a love-hate relationship with Twitter as I’m sure we all do. As a tool for imparting news it’s great, even when the news is scary and heartbreaking.
A crisis like the earthquakes in Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas is particularly scary. When a disaster is an act of nature and not man, that means there’s no one, on the surface, to blame. Once you consider the area affected has suffered from a severe lack of economic growth among other things, it becomes more complicated. There’s always someone to whom you can direct your anger and frustration.
When the story broke, many users in my timeline tweeted and re-tweeted late-breaking news, donation links, prayers and more. This is part of what makes a platform like Twitter invaluable. Unfortunately, this comes with something I like to call “Twitter-shaming.” This happens whenever there’s a huge news story, typically of the political nature, and concerned users take umbrage with others that aren’t tweeting as passionately about the topic as they are. They are angry that the trending topics do not reflect the real news of the world. They demand why the people they follow are talking about other, more frivolous, things. They need to feel secure that the world is a charitable, compassionate and informed place and are using Twitter to gauge that.
A lot of this came in the form of users re-tweeting and referencing a message by Wyclef at blitzkreig speed, in which he told people where they could donate $5 to the earthquake fund via SMS. “I donated. Did you?” There’s no way to know who actually donated based on those tweets, but more than that, there’s no way to determine that someone doesn’t give a damn simply because they aren’t talking about it. Another popular question was why it took an earthquake for anyone to care for the people of Haiti.
This problem isn’t unique to Twitter; you’ll find people demanding all sorts of action and updates from websites that are silent on certain topics, either by default or design. “Why are you blogging about this when this is going on in the world? Don’t you think this is more important?”
Yes, what’s going on in Haiti is important, and it’s very easy to help. Unfortunately my jacked up service plan won’t allow me to make donations via text message, so I went to Yele Haiti and donated with my credit card. I didn’t do it because I have something to prove or because I was Twitter-shamed. I did it because up until a few days ago I wouldn’t have been able to and know what it’s like to be in need of help.
The point of all this is that finger-wagging is counterintuitive to charity and compassion. It isn’t necessary for an act of loving kindness, even if it’s just concern and prayer, to be accompanied with righteousness in order for it to work. You show your concern by sharing the information, doing your part to help and not allowing yourself to become judgmental when it appears others don’t care. Maybe they do care and simply don’t feel the need to shout it from the rooftops.
Your motivational quotes are wack.
(I apologize in advance for the ranty nature of this post. I also apologize for the bitchy title, which might seem counterintuitive to what I seek to accomplish by writing this. Still funny, though.)
I’ve started sharing quotes on Twitter and Facebook. I know, I know. I used to roll my eyes when I saw people doing this, but it was because I didn’t find any of what they were sharing particularly useful. I even found some of it harmful, in spite of the multiple co-signs such quotes would receive. As for my own, if it’s a wisdom-based quote, I tag it as prajna. If the words are meant to encourage benevolence and generally not being an asshole toward others, then I’ll tag it metta. I try to keep my quotes, or the dispensation of what I believe to be shareable wisdom, out of the motivational realm because motivational quotes are ass-stupid.
Validation is not motivation. Try detaching yourself from your ego first.
Most motivational quotes are designed to make us feel good about ourselves without much self-reflection. We like to be told over and over again how beautiful and strong and worthy we are but rarely do we want to hear that we are getting in our own way. It’s the proverbial can of Red Bull that gives you wings for a few minutes until you crash because you haven’t learned anything about yourself.
Not to evangelize (which is so totally what I’m doing), but showing genuine interest in other people, the world around you, and understanding that you are a part of something larger puts you at a far enough remove from your inflated concept of self to make room for proper reflection. There’s a way to be self-involved without the ego, and that’s how it begins.
I bring this up because there are people, visible ones, with black skin and lots of money and lots of juice that like to parrot this motivational trash, cultivating a generation of Black 20-, 30- and 40-years olds that believe there are haters lurking around every corner attempting to pull them down (where is down?), which leads to a steadfast refusal to take personal responsibility for anything. A lot of it, unfortunately, is dispensed by the brother of a supposed Buddhist (I’m quickly coming to learn that Celebrity Buddhism is vastly different from what Us Poors practice) and many others who, if they would only shut their mouths, would be exponentially more useful.
I’m not saying we don’t all need a motivational kick in the ass every now and then, but that kind of advice is only effective when your concept of yourself is not drowning in self-victimization, self-aggrandizement or delusion. It is only effective when your goal is inner-contentment and not to be Dark Overlord Of The Universe. And when you understand those things, you won’t need that Fortune Cookie advice anyway. It also helps when your perspective and worldview aren’t shaped by someone on the teevee.
Let’s go!