Twittering Notables

I signed up for a Twitter account a few months ago and found that I had nothing to say. Nothing important or interesting anyway. So after maybe three tweets I went dormant.

Until a few days ago. I've been steadily accumulating followers (it just happens as people find you...it's through no effort on my part) and I started feeling crusty for not giving the people a good show. It's funny. You start to feel mildly guilty if you're not tweeting. It's sort of like climbing up on stage in front of a crowd of people and then just standing there, silent.

So I started tweeting again and found that when you don't worry about saying the right thing, you've got plenty to tweet about. But the really interesting bit is following other people. And more specifically following celebrities and other notables. Most of these famous-owned Twitter accounts are broadcasted by the celebs themselves. And it's really interesting to follow their daily thoughts. I was just reading some the recent tweets from Kevin Smith (director of Clerks and Dogma, among others) and the dude is hilarious! I mean you'd expect that, based on his films, but to actually interact with him on a nearly one-on-one basis is a totally different experience. In fact, I just killed a half an hour jumping from one notable to another when I should have been writing this blog entry.

I'm not celebrity-obsessed by any means. But Twitter is an opportunity to tune into the daily lives of people you'd never get a chance to chat with in real life. It just so happens that most of the famous people twittering today happen to be actors and entertainers. If there were notable physicists or doctors, or luminaries in other fields twittering I'd love to follow them, too.

And tuning into your friends and family is a trip, too. It's just another way to stay connected in an increasingly fractured existence.

If you want to start tweeting and following, go to www.twitter.com. When you get an account, look me up. My username is jdbloom, and Kate, who just started tweeting a few days ago, is KateCzek.