To those misinformed, confused or, merely, just curious, here is an excerpt from McSweeney’s comprehensive guide to “Understanding Twitter,” this first sentence perfectly answering the infamous “what is twitter” question in elegant, beautiful simplicity:
Twitter seems to be, first and foremost, an online haven where teenagers making drugs can telegraph secret code words to arrange gang fights and orgies.
As you can tell, this is well worth the read, but here’s the rest of the paragraph so you can stay on my website a little longer:
It also functions as a vehicle for teasing peers until they commit suicide. In order to become a “follower” on Twitter, teens first must flash their high-beam headlights at an oncoming motorist on the highway. Then, if that motorist flashes his or her high-beam headlights back in reply, the teen must kill the motorist in order to be initiated into “following” the online gang. The catch is that one can only use 140 sentences to plan a total of 140 events—that is, any combination of orgies, gang fights, suicides, and highway killings totaling 140 planned situations or activities.
It is pretty bomb; I’ll give it that. Follow me on twitter here: @masemase
[via waxy]
