I think that most tweets show that the majority of the world is pretty stupid.
It’s sad, the misspelled words and poor grammar. There are worse tweets, though.
Like the tweets that sound suicidal but aren’t meant to be. You’ve seen em, “This is the worst day ever. It’s over for me now.”
What the writer means is, “This was a tough day at work, but at least I’m at the end of it.” But because it was sent at 6pm people thought you were offing yourself.
Or take the time I tweeted something that I meant to be a compliment to Yvette Nicole Brown of “Community.” To save characters I tried to be brief, but due to lack of clarity I accidentally insulted her. She interpreted as an insult and very politely responded and stood up for herself. The tweet was easy to misunderstand and when I realized that I cleared things up. She said she wasn’t upset, but I can’t help but think Pierce is loosely based on me. I think I’m just paranoid.
Brevity is not your friend. Too few words, like “i’m dead…,” for instance, can alarm people. The writer probably meant dead tired, but someone could read that and think you were sending your last goodbye. You were laying somewhere weak and dying so you couldn’t even capitalize the “i.” The ellipses makes it seem like it’s a death breath. That last rattle of life. Context matters, kids.
I bring this up to say, “Be careful how you tweet.” Not only is that less that 140 characters, it’s also sound advice. Now that’s brevity, baby!