The All-Consuming Twitter

2,280.

That is the number of tweets I have posted on my account since its inception last year. That is approximately 6 tweets per day for the past year. This pales in comparison to some of my other friends who are over the 10,000 mark, but I'm proud of it nonetheless.
Yes, I am proud of it. When I scroll through my twitter page and read what I've written, I don't feel like I've wasted time or like I should be ashamed. I see my comic musings and opinions from everyday and I'm proud of the things I've written. Sure, you can't write some amazing novel on twitter. But everything I tweet is a small amount of me, and I try to personalize everything I tweet, even if it's something mundane like buying socks,



Or asking for birthday presents,



Or chronicling events at work,



Or reporting on new fashion trends.



I try my best (I try really hard) to make my tweets funny/ interesting to read. And there are many
(more popular) accounts that do the same thing if not better with their own accounts. When I scroll through my twitter feed I am constantly being shown small 140 character punchlines from various comedians and actors, some of whom even made their start on Twitter. Despite the trash and idiotic ramblings that Twitter is infamous for, there is a lot of people who Tweet funny and inventive things.

Rob Delaney, an average married father, made his start on Twitter, and has now blossomed into a published author and comedian.


Or Mary Charlene, one of my favourite Twitter personalities, who has amassed a whopping 150k followers and over 12k tweets.


Twitter can even be used to spark social change and raise awareness of certain issues. For example, a recent trending hashtag has been #YesAllWomen, where various women and men post about rape-culture and women's rights.





All this isn't to say that Twitter isn't filled with a lot of this,



or this,



because it is. There's a lot of dumb tweets just as there are a lot of funny, affecting tweets. But isn't that true for anything? For every scholarly novel there is a book about Spirit Animal Guides and a Justin Bieber biography. Twitter and all other social media get a bad rep for being un-educational, "brainwashing" garbage, but often times we disregard all of the benefits social media can provide us. If you're willing to look past a little trash, you'll find that social media can be unifying, entertaining, and if used properly it can change the world. In what other generation would I be able to wish my aunt in B.C. a happy birthday, interact with my favourite celebrities and comedians, or spread awareness of a cause that could reach hundreds of people at the same time? I think instead of pushing people to reject social media, we should be encouraging people to use it in a way that could be beneficial to themselves and others. Social media, like anything, can be as great or as terrible as you make it to be.