There was an awful fuss last week about a company that analyzed Twitter and decided that 40% of it was ‘babble’. As it turns out, their client Philtro is a piece of software that filters Twitter, and their methods of analysis were laughable. To make matters worse they behaved like idiots in the aftermath, with wonderful comments like “If nothing else comes of our research, at least I know that Twitter is really full of self important people who have way too mcuh [sic] time on their hands.”
The fiasco prompted some interesting, thoughtful and occasionally inspirational blog posts from Twitter sympathisers, the best of which was a post by @glinner called The Conversation. It is in fact a direct response to yet another badly-researched Twitter piece in the broadsheets, but it presents a good answer to the ‘babble’ accusation:
…we are communicating with each other on a platform that encourages good manners, that rewards us when we’re interesting and lightly smacks our hand when we’re not. For the first time in history, the human race is having a global conversation, and despite all our differences, we actually seem to be getting on quite well.
Twitter is all about context, and that’s what you can’t see from the outside. Let’s take the classic ‘what I had for breakfast’ tweet:
Avocado on toast. Breakfast of champions. @aliteralgirl
This tweet is not:
- newsworthy;
- literary genius;
- life-changing;
- hilarious;
- sponsored by the Avocado Board with support from the Olympic Committee;
- inciting hatred;
- illegal.
Neither is it:
- boring;
- pointless;
- narcissistic;
- laughable;
- ridiculous;
- a sign that society is doomed.
But it is:
- cute;
- positive;
- polite;
- pithy.
I know @aliteralgirl.
If I didn’t know @aliteralgirl, and I were browsing the Twitter public timeline trying to classify tweets for some shonky PR research assignment, and one of the categories available was ‘Babble’, I would probably class this tweet as ‘Babble’.
But I happen to know @aliteralgirl. And she knows me. We talk in real life once or twice a week, and the rest of the time we’re part of The Conversation on Twitter. So when I saw this tweet I read it as shorthand for something like this:
I’m eating avocado. It’s after 11, so I probably overslept and might be late for my teaching job. I’ll probably have to cycle like a demon to get there, but once I’m there nobody will really care that I was late and I’ll sit staring out of the window as usual. So for now I’m quite amused that I’ve made myself a slightly quirky breakfast, and I’m glad to be able to share it with a handful of people who might be reading Twitter at the moment.
Rather than just reporting my breakfast, which is acceptable but mediocre I’m adding a comment. Staking a claim. Not only am I eating avocado on toast, I’m telling you, the world, that it’s a great thing. Breakfast of champions. If you want to be a champion, you should really be eating this. If I were publishing this in a newspaper, or standing on a street corner shouting it, I would probably choose different words. Something more straightforward, maybe. ‘I love avocado on toast’ or ‘Eat avocado on toast’. But given that my boyfriend (who will definitely read this) and most of the other people who regularly spot my tweets generally have a certain quirky, British sense of humour, I’ve written it as a deadpan advertising slogan knowing full well that everyone will understand the spirit in which it was written. Except maybe the girl who’s watching the public timeline and classifying tweets. She’ll probably put it in the ‘Babble’ box.
You see, this tiny bit of babble is part of a huge conversation. My interpretation is only one of many, and the conversation carries over seamlessly into real life. You might even say that, in this case, the online part of the conversation is an extension of the real life part.
A justimanifestification for the Tweet Suite
I get a bit antsy and embarrassed when artists start to justify and explain their work, or produce manifestos, or make claims about the effects their work has on the world. But sometimes art does have a relevance beyond the aesthetic. Feel free to slap me round the face with a trout if I’m disappearing up my own arse, but I think the Tweet Suite has a message, albeit a simple one:
Babble is valuable in context.
In the context of a conversation, babble has value. With the Tweet Suite I’m setting babble to music, and that gives it context and therefore value. By making the avocado on toast tweet into an annoyingly catchy jingle, I’ve given it an unexpected life beyond its fleeting appearance on a handful of screens.
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Don’t get me wrong. I’m writing the Tweet Suite (50 movements in 90 days) because it’s fun, it’s something interesting to talk about, and I work better to a deadline. But whenever Twitter gets accused of being babble, I’m going to jump on a chair and give an impromptu performance of Movement 7 of the Tweet Suite. So if you see a 9-foot fop singing about avocado on toast, you’ll know what’s going on. And I’d appreciate it if you could join in with the harmonies at the end.
