Buzzfeed's Oral History of Weird Twitter
April 5, 2013 2:19 PM   Subscribe

 
Ah, I love this, thanks for posting it. I have to repress so much of myself on Facebook because so much of my (straight-laced, Nickelback-loving) professional and family network is on it. I'm really looking forward to exploring Weird Twitter, it's totally me.
posted by KokuRyu at 2:24 PM on April 5, 2013 [1 favorite]


I DON'T SEE GREG NOG NEWHERE ON THERE TOTALLY ROBBED UNSUBSCRIBE ME FROM BUZZFEED FASCISTS
posted by The Whelk at 2:29 PM on April 5, 2013 [7 favorites]


I hear ya, Whelk. In the land of the weird twits, Greg Nog is king. Although I wish he'd bring back hashtag #twurt
posted by to sir with millipedes at 2:30 PM on April 5, 2013


Disappointing they couldn't get horse_ebooks to weigh in.
posted by ckape at 2:31 PM on April 5, 2013 [1 favorite]


Yeah some of the most brilliant people aren't really emphasized, the types who are less "jokes" and more art disguised as jokes, or jokes disguised as art, or just completely sui generis and unclassifiable. Greg (gregerskine) is mentioned by one person, who definitely has his pulse on some of the best stuff out there including TPHD and ARealLiveGhost:

"@nopattern [Bio: "Artist/designer/photographer/creator. I just like making whatever" Best tweets]: There's the obvious ones like dril, degg, lowenaffchen, muscularson, boring_as_heck. conortripler, leyawn, famouscrab all funny in their completely own ways. actualperson084 is truly a brilliant dude.. TPHD, arealliveghost, utilitylimb, gregerskine, graeyalien...they all are amazing at creating a mood. they could all easily write or design, in a way, moodboards and styleboards for movies and tv and books or whatever"

Also feel kinda weird at the representation here, only a few women mentioned and a largely (if not all) white bunch. This section of twitter is vast and inevitably tons of great people are left out of these writeups.
posted by naju at 2:34 PM on April 5, 2013


Wow, never thought I'd hear about FYAD again.
posted by Countess Elena at 2:35 PM on April 5, 2013 [5 favorites]


Some other people who consistently blow my mind are @petfurniture, @timescanner, @regisl and @prince_stolas (who may or may not be a bot)
posted by naju at 2:38 PM on April 5, 2013 [1 favorite]


TROLLING CORPORATE ACCOUNTS HAS A LONG AND STORIED HISTORY

Also did I hallucinate a Metafilter thread about some Ask McDonalds' Anything type forum that kept getting hit with absurd questions they tried to answer as straightly as possible? I remember laughing so hard it hurt but I might have also been on a lot of painkillers at the time.
posted by The Whelk at 2:38 PM on April 5, 2013


only a few women mentioned and a largely (if not all) white bunch.

big surprise there

also lol @ "whenever people try to treat it purely as a place to make money, they are going to run into this sort of static" and the first half of the article is plugging a forum you have to pay to join
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 2:40 PM on April 5, 2013


I started taking Twitter seriously after the green revolution in iran. I read through him about how people like Jon Hendren (@fart) used Iranian Revolution hashtags to Goatse over a million people. It was then that i realized the potential for this new medium.

This is why I roll my eyes whenever I hear some tech-evangelist spouting off about how some new medium is going to change the way people communicate and interact.
posted by Panjandrum at 2:42 PM on April 5, 2013 [1 favorite]


Wow, never thought I'd hear about FYAD again.

Yeah. When I was on SA, I never got FYAD. I was too uptight for that kind of humor. I think I'd appreciate it better now.

Also, yeah, Greg Nog got robbed.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 2:46 PM on April 5, 2013 [1 favorite]


The internet's hippest circlejerk.
posted by blue t-shirt at 2:48 PM on April 5, 2013




This "oral history" is neither oral nor history.

Discuss.
posted by DU at 2:50 PM on April 5, 2013


@degg: if a shady character ever pulls you into a dark alley and shows you his ass let me know. i want to see his ass too
posted by FeralHat at 2:51 PM on April 5, 2013 [2 favorites]


what is up with all this badmouthing of circlejerks, is it jealously? Tendonitis?
posted by The Whelk at 2:52 PM on April 5, 2013 [3 favorites]


Related (and funny as Hell, at least to me.)
posted by double block and bleed at 2:53 PM on April 5, 2013 [1 favorite]


Loved Crimer.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 2:54 PM on April 5, 2013


tell me some more about your cool friends *hat falls off to reveal picture of TOCATY pinned to broom* haha suckers
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 3:00 PM on April 5, 2013 [1 favorite]


There's a problem with cliqueishness, yeah. Which is frustrating. I don't know if you get to be "weird", which maybe implies a sort of inclusiveness and willingness to be open to all sorts of outsider types, and also part of a cloistered in group with in jokes at the same time. This is a tension with this sort of thing. I blame a good deal of this on the SA/FYAD roots.
posted by naju at 3:06 PM on April 5, 2013


Wow, never thought I'd hear about FYAD again.
posted by Countess Elena at 2:35 PM


fyad

is leaking
posted by trunk muffins at 3:14 PM on April 5, 2013 [3 favorites]


like a diaper

- this post (c) TOCATY and metafilter, all rights reserved
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 3:18 PM on April 5, 2013


which one of you people are @ProBirdRights now give me a bread
posted by The Whelk at 3:19 PM on April 5, 2013 [1 favorite]


all I have to say is that the tweet that rings echoes in my head like a hit gong is "I only type with my middle fingers because fuck this job." Not sure if this is related to the buzzfeed article because honestly I couldn't understand it.
posted by angrycat at 3:32 PM on April 5, 2013 [2 favorites]


Weird twitter is basically a place to go and relax with friends. It's somewhere you can just be yourself, and not worry about it. Another reason to go there would be if you want to just hang out.
posted by Fraxas at 3:43 PM on April 5, 2013 [10 favorites]


its a great place where you can just "let it all hang out" and "chill" with "fellow humans" of which you are one with the breathing and all
posted by The Whelk at 3:45 PM on April 5, 2013 [1 favorite]


I wasn't going to read that article because roll eyes 'weird Twitter' hyuck but I'm so glad I did because @dril's contribution to the interview is pure gold.

Also, I still miss @agentlebrees.
posted by trunk muffins at 4:00 PM on April 5, 2013 [1 favorite]


Don;t talk baout it.
posted by limeonaire at 4:43 PM on April 5, 2013


What about fireland? Where's fireland!?
posted by Taft at 4:50 PM on April 5, 2013


Inevitably they've chosen to aggrandize some of the worst examples, in particular Rob fucking Delaney, who I have blocked in order to never have to see his particular brand of glorified-Dane-Cookitude ever again on my timeline.

I want to hate "weird twitter," because at its worst it's just as lazy as "white people dance like *this.*" Lazier, actually, because the latter is at least a joke, even if its a cliched one.

But there is original, innovative stuff there, there really is. @dogsdoingthings and @someofmybest are particularly enjoyable to me, though they're very different kinds of weird. Come to think of it, they kind of represent two ends of the spectrum between "pure performance art without an identifiable author" and "normal person who talks about her life and makes jokes but does it in a weird, funny, absurd way."
posted by drjimmy11 at 4:52 PM on April 5, 2013 [1 favorite]


But there is original, innovative stuff there, there really is.

i view your comment with skepticism
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 5:02 PM on April 5, 2013


Ok.
posted by drjimmy11 at 5:38 PM on April 5, 2013


So, it's just Twitter. Before CNN and the Arab Spring, this is all Twitter was, right?
posted by JoeBlubaugh at 6:47 PM on April 5, 2013


FYAD THREAD (NSFW, paywalled)

Kinda odd that years after SA stopped generating memes this shows up. Good argument for keeping FYAD around even if the rest of the site (me included) doesn't really get it.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 6:50 PM on April 5, 2013 [1 favorite]


NSFW, paywalled

cool, thanks
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 7:04 PM on April 5, 2013 [1 favorite]


@la petite bort mom wont let me play video games w/ female characters because i leave kiss marks on the screen; guess what mom i can kiss boy characters too

And that's how I got hooked on weird Twitter.
posted by mcmile at 7:43 PM on April 5, 2013 [2 favorites]


I was so very ready to hate this, on account of it being a buzzfeed article about Twitter and all.

...and then I saw that it was an oral history featuring '@fart' and-more importantly-'@dogboners'. Amazing.
posted by graphnerd at 7:45 PM on April 5, 2013


I realize taste is subjective and all, but I'd think there's a good case to make for YouTube (or one of its channels) as being the funniest place on the Internet.
posted by mrgrimm at 8:05 PM on April 5, 2013


Oh yah, FYAD. That was a weird place, even for SA. No, it was like concentrated SA. I was a Pet Islander, which was the weirdest yet most awesome pet forum ever. People loved their pets but didn't get stupid gushy about them like so many other places. FYAD would occasionally make incursions their in an attempt to troll, but since everyone in the forum was an SA veteran, it rarely worked because half the PI regulars where FYAD regulars anyway.

Wow. SA was a strange place with a really strange culture that I haven't seen anywhere else. Progressive, regressive, condescending and supportive all at the same time. I stopped going when their password policy went insane, and haven't thought about it in ages. It's interesting to see one of the stranger aspects has spread into a new space.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 2:16 AM on April 6, 2013 [2 favorites]


There's a great FYAD thread mocking a Pet Island thread where a chicken owner was getting mad and yelling at her 11 year niece for accidentally hurting a chicken. But yeah it's a strange place. Half of it is basically Metafilter, with all the language and politeness rules mod-enforced. And then there are the offsite forums that mock that. Most of the real humor seems to be in FYAD.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 3:09 AM on April 6, 2013


(Buzzfeed's Katie Notopoulus compiled a slightly more thorough list of weird twitter people here)
posted by naju at 9:45 AM on April 6, 2013 [1 favorite]


naju: (Buzzfeed's Katie Notopoulus compiled a slightly more thorough list of weird twitter people here)

Very nice. Just about everyone that I felt was missing in the first list shows up in this one, with the exception of @upsettummy and @buckyisotope.
posted by kilozerocharliealphawhiskey at 12:49 PM on April 6, 2013


"weird twitter" just looks like my typical IRC conversations circa 1996. Down to the all caps shenanigans... Hehbonics and #eotd FOREVAR
posted by lordaych at 4:10 PM on April 6, 2013 [2 favorites]


A lot of weird twitter is just funky misspellings and pretending you don't understand how normal things work, so I invented weird twitter in fourth grade and all I got out of it was extensive testing for learning disabilities.
posted by Divine_Wino at 6:09 PM on April 6, 2013 [2 favorites]


pretending you don't understand how normal things work

This is just what enstrangement is, isn't it?

look ma i read shklovsky in translation
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 6:11 PM on April 6, 2013


when i invented wered tweietre they had not yet discovered #nodads, so i was constantly being yelled at by my dad
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 6:24 PM on April 6, 2013 [1 favorite]


to be fair to him i was irritating as shit
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 6:30 PM on April 6, 2013


no fair, I invented short form absurd commenting first!!
posted by GenericUser at 5:36 AM on April 7, 2013 [1 favorite]


Look, if it's in all caps or no caps, then it's WEIRD, see?
posted by grubi at 9:09 AM on April 8, 2013


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