David Emery Online

Excitement about excitement

9 January 2013

“BOWIE!”

“Bowieeeee!!!!”

“BOWIEOMG”

“Bowie isn’t dead!”

“BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWIE! BOWIEBOWIEBOWIEBOWIEBOWIEBOWIE! hyperventilates BOWIE! #Bowie”

All these tweets were posted within about 20 minutes of each other yesterday morning.

They simultaneously represent the best and worst of twitter.

Twitter is probably the best tool for breaking news you could think of. I remember in the weeks that followed the 7/7 London bombing when everything felt dangerous, strange and on edge pondering about the idea of a “breaking news” notification system that could pop up something on your computer if something important happened. Now we have that, but not just for what’s important to the world in general, but what’s important to you – a hand picked, curated importance. If something of interest happens and I’m near an open twitter client I’ll know what’s happened within minutes (if not seconds).

Same goes for when a funny picture of a cat get’s uploaded somewhere, but that’s my point – it’s curated.

But whilst we’ve gained something have we lost something as well?

In the speed to report events, there’s no time for opinion, no time for accuracy, no time for anything but “this happened!”. Frothy excitement, with no substance. All bubbles.

Maybe this is fine. The first wave of froth hits the shore in a wave of excitement – to stretch the metaphor to breaking point – and then slowly but surely more considered opinions will follow as people spend some time actually thinking about what’s happened, instead of simply reacting. But here’s my concern: “popular opinion”, as in mass opinion amongst a social group, gets formed by the people that talk first and talk loudest. Once the tone has been set it takes work to unset it, and invariably with twitter the tone set is “this exciting thing has happened”, which leaves out any hope of either positive or negative criticism, or thought.

There’s another level to this though; the constant interactions and near dependancy that twitter can lead to means that the reason for this excitement and “post first, ask questions later” are nothing to do with the content or story that they relate to. The excitement is for the excitement. The rush of discovering something new and getting to tell everybody about it first. The internet as a video game, with (mental) points awarded for being quick off the mark.

Take yesterday’s story as an example. People aren’t excited about the new David Bowie track, they’re excited about that there is a new David Bowie track. But that inflection doesn’t translate well through to the real time medium of twitter. Not only does it feel like excitement for the track, not the concept of the track, but it sets the tone for what follows. Criticism in a swarm of capital-letter excitement is hard to find, but also if you’ve put your heart on the line, digitally at least, by being massively excited are you really going to admit – either publicly, or just to yourself – if the end result isn’t what you were hopping for?

I could, of course, be being pessimistic. Maybe people can make their own minds up on these things, and that the instant non-reactions of empty excitement are just that: instant, and hence fleeting. But it feels like the truth maybe slightly different from that.