2 Latest Thoughts About Twitter

Last week I made a lot of readers unhappy with my posts (here and here) about Twitter.

It's not good strategy to antagonize your audience but, what the hell, it's only a hobby. Here are two more thoughts.

Latest Thought #1:

I have summed up my opinion of Twitter in the following way: It's how the narcissistic keep in touch with the feckless.

To bolster my case, I call your attention (thanks to David Burn of AdPulp) to a recent interesting piece in the The Sunday Times (of London.) The reporter asked a few really smart people about Twitter. Here are excerpts from what they said:

The clinical psychologist Oliver James has his reservations. “Twittering stems from a lack of identity. It’s a constant update of who you are, what you are, where you are. Nobody would Twitter if they had a strong sense of identity.”

“We are the most narcissistic age ever,” agrees Dr David Lewis, a cognitive neuropsychologist and director of research based at the University of Sussex. “Using Twitter suggests a level of insecurity whereby, unless people recognise you, you cease to exist. It may stave off insecurity in the short term, but it won’t cure it.”

For Alain de Botton, author of Status Anxiety and the forthcoming The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, Twitter represents “a way of making sure you are permanently connected to somebody and somebody is permanently connected to you, proving that you are alive. It’s like when a parent goes into a child’s room to check the child is still breathing. It is a giant baby monitor.”

Just because a bunch of psychologists and philosophers agree with me, doesn't necessarily mean I'm wrong.

Latest Thought #2

One of the great attractions of Twitter is that it is new. It is of the present.

It doesn't take any great power of observation to notice that as electronic communication has become increasingly pervasive, fads grow faster and die more violent deaths.

Perspective is the ability to separate that which is new and currently popular from that which is worthwhile.

In the parade of knuckleheads, the grand marshal is the one who believes the present always knows best.

By The Way...

TAC recommends two terrific books by the above-mentioned Alain de Botton -- Status Anxiety and How Proust Can Change Your Life.

If You Liked Borat You'll Love The Ukrainian Army

It's video day here at TAC.

First is a spot for the Ukrainian Army (along with a translation.) This is not a joke, it's a real spot. Apparently, in the Ukraine, they let monkeys direct and account planners write.



GIRL 1: Would you take us for a ride on your BMW?
BMW-DRIVER: Even to the end of the world!
SOLDIER: Hey, i’d like to drown some vodka, girls!
GIRL 1: Just a second!
GIRL 2: Where do you live?
SOLDIER: Right here- daytime at work, and at night in the clubs!
GIRL 1: Which work?
SOLDIER: Contract of course!
BLONDE GIRL: Contract?? Marriage contract or what?
GIRL 3: Army contract, stupid!
BMW-DRIVER: Hey, don’t you wanna ride on my car?
GIRLS: Forget it, take yourself for a ride!
NARRATOR: It’s about time for new heroes! With contract based service in Ukrainian armed forces!

And now, from the ridiculous to the sublime -- comedian Louis CK with Conan O'Brien. "The crappiest generation of spoiled idiots."



Shout out to Jimmy Cabral for this.

So Wrong For So Long

For almost 2 years now, we here at Ad Contrarian global headquarters have been ranting about the imbeciles in the press and in the marketing industry who have convinced themselves, and most of the ad industry, that television is dead.

I am very happy to gloatingly report to you today that television viewing is at its all-time highest point ever. EVER.

Regardless of all the bullshit you read, there have never been as many people watching more television for longer periods of time than there are now. NEVER.

According to Nielsen, the average American "now watches more than 151 hours of TV a month. That's about five hours a day and an all-time high, up 3.6% from the 145 or so hours Americans reportedly watched in the same period last year."

Kudos to the brilliant Susan Bandura, who wrote a guest post for this blog back in November of 2008 and totally nailed it:

...what’s really going to happen to TV viewing in the near future?

Let’s see … everybody has a TV … people are staying at home more … consumption of entertainment usually goes up when the economy is down… and now it's dark by the time we get home from work...

All of these factors say “more TV watching” as far as I’m concerned.

Susan was quoted by the LA Times yesterday in this story about the surprising (to those who have drunk the "tv is dead" Kool-Aid) strength of tv viewing.

Here are some more contrarian ideas about the "death of television" and the "death of advertising" you can expect to be reading about here soon:

• Despite all the bullshit you read by digital maniacs, there will soon be a study that shows that tv is still the dominant medium for reaching every demographic group, including young people.

• Despite all the "advertising is dead" nonsense, a study will soon be released showing that even with clutter, fragmentation, TiVo, digital media, etc, tv advertising is as effective as it has ever been (see Update below.)

• Despite all the golly-gee web bullshit, you will soon read that a higher proportion of on-line searches are driven by television than by on-line display (banner) ads.

TV ain't dead. Advertising ain't dead. The only thing that's dead is the credibility of the trade press and the trendoid, self-promoting pundits who've been so wrong for so long.

Update:
Before the electrons were even dry on this post, Adweek published an article entitled "Study: TV Ads More Effective Than Ever."