What if Twitter... came to life?
March 6, 2010 8:23 AM   Subscribe

We asked some of our friends to film their favorite tweets. We didn't care how they did it. They could read it. They could act it. They could do it with puppets. Whatever they wanted. The only rules were it had to be a tweet written by someone else and it had to contain the entire tweet and nothing but the tweet. (via Matt Haughey's Twitter)
posted by gman (43 comments total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
I follow a few people in the video, but I'd only read a handful of those tweets in text before, so the rest were a complete surprise. Seeing them acted out brought a whole new level of comedy to the mix (the "underwear inspector" joke is 10x funnier when spoken).
posted by mathowie at 8:26 AM on March 6, 2010


I haven't even followed the link and I already wet myself with glee.
posted by DU at 8:27 AM on March 6, 2010


Holy cow, the CSI: Toilet Stall scene was heeeelarious. Love this. Reminds me a bit of Jane Campion's short film Passionless Moments. Anyone ever seen that? It's great.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 8:33 AM on March 6, 2010


There's some lame filler in the middle but mostly this is awesome. And more awesome is that they did it in the first place.
posted by DU at 8:41 AM on March 6, 2010


I don't know if I missed something in this by not following anyone on Twitter, or if it added an awesome extra zen element. Either way, this was awesome.
posted by Navelgazer at 8:50 AM on March 6, 2010


Also: is it just my imagination, or is that lonelysandwich on the outdoor mechanized motor boat?
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 8:55 AM on March 6, 2010


boy are my arms tentacles! love it.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 8:56 AM on March 6, 2010


Wow. I have no patience at all, ever, and I watched that all the way through...awesome.

And the ragtime one was hysterical.
posted by mollymayhem at 8:57 AM on March 6, 2010


AHaWO- Looked like lonelysandwich to me, and he's listed in the credits.
posted by mollymayhem at 8:58 AM on March 6, 2010


The last one before the credits (around 8:50) is worth the price of admission alone! If you get bored with the middle, skip to the end.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 9:03 AM on March 6, 2010


(Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates: yes sir. This 'sween/poeks jointâ„¢' explains his cryptic tweet from a few days ago.
posted by cgomez at 9:13 AM on March 6, 2010 [2 favorites]


A natural progression from the Tweet Museum.
posted by cashman at 9:19 AM on March 6, 2010 [1 favorite]


Ughhhhh... Is this funny to aging gen-xers? Do people under 30 even use twitter?

Why is twitter still around when it has no competitive advantage over other social networking sites and no busines model?

WHYYYYYYY
posted by colinshark at 9:25 AM on March 6, 2010


and so it begins.
posted by gman at 9:29 AM on March 6, 2010 [3 favorites]


i never ever watch anything web video-y that is longer than 3 minutes. this was so full of win i stuck with it until the closing credits.

so, like, mega kudos :)
posted by liza at 9:34 AM on March 6, 2010


A kneejerk reaction to Twitter? In my Metafilter?
posted by Pronoiac at 9:35 AM on March 6, 2010 [1 favorite]


That was... pretty good, actually.
posted by rodgerd at 9:38 AM on March 6, 2010


50% of this is hilarious. 50% is just nerds saying tweets into their webcams. C'mon people, a little more ingenuity is called for when making a video. The last one especially did a great job reinterpreting the words.

Also if someone reedited it so the actual tweets showed in the corner like they did for that one it would be much more powerful. I know it's home-made and schmoopish and all but, I give it a Needs Improvement.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:43 AM on March 6, 2010


Ughhhhh... Is this funny to aging gen-xers? Do people under 30 even use twitter?

Yes to the second question, no idea to the first.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 9:53 AM on March 6, 2010


Never twust anyone over 30.
posted by Babblesort at 10:03 AM on March 6, 2010


I love the Lando one... Genius.
posted by Chernobyl Bob at 10:05 AM on March 6, 2010


Wow, this made Demetri Martin look like a punk.

[I like this a lot actually.]
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 10:09 AM on March 6, 2010


Do people under 30 even use twitter?

As someone under thirty, surrounded by twitter using-peers and subordinates, I answer yes.
posted by shen1138 at 10:11 AM on March 6, 2010


"lifted the toilet seat to find poop in the bowl. either someone forgot to flush or this toilet is from 5 seconds in the future."
posted by eperker at 10:12 AM on March 6, 2010


"lifted the toilet seat to find poop in the bowl. either someone forgot to flush or this toilet is from 5 seconds in the future."

Occam's razor suggests an answer
posted by found missing at 10:31 AM on March 6, 2010


OH my GOD. The poop is coming from inside the toilet and IT'S GOT A RAZOR!!
posted by Babblesort at 10:37 AM on March 6, 2010 [2 favorites]


Wow. I have no patience at all, ever, and I watched that all the way through...awesome.

Well that's the hook, isn't it? No bit longer than say 45 seconds. Sounds like a fresh new paradigm to me. Or maybe it's just an extrapolation of stand-up comedy (ie: this better be leading to me laughing and soon, or I'm outa here).
posted by philip-random at 10:47 AM on March 6, 2010


The end of Western Civilization.
posted by HTuttle at 10:57 AM on March 6, 2010


I enjoyed this.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 11:20 AM on March 6, 2010


Place your hand on the Jack Chick tract and swear to tell the tweet, and nothing but the tweet.
posted by BrotherCaine at 11:20 AM on March 6, 2010 [1 favorite]


The end of Western Civilization.

True, because tweets - in their capture of the essence & minutiae of situations - are more reminiscent of haiku than anything in the Western tradition.

For example, paraphrasing Basho (Donald Keene's translation):

The future bog.
A turd drops in -
The sound of the water.
posted by UbuRoivas at 11:21 AM on March 6, 2010


That's - that's not a haiku, UbuRoivas.

My compulsion to
fix it surprises me and
weirds me out, a bit.

posted by Pronoiac at 12:52 PM on March 6, 2010


are you some kind of 5-7-5 prescriptivist?

Basho's frog haiku is arguably the greatest & best known of all time, and translators rarely bother trying to squeeze themselves into that kind of format - see here, for example.
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:09 PM on March 6, 2010


That was fun. I know one of the peeps in the video so that was a pleasant surprise.

He just won a Shorty award. It's arjunbasu for you non-twitter haters out there.
posted by Scott H at 2:44 PM on March 6, 2010


UbuRoivas: are you some kind of 5-7-5 prescriptivist?

I guess so, yeah.


Basho's frog haiku is arguably the greatest & best known of all time, and translators rarely bother trying to squeeze themselves into that kind of format - see here, for example.

It's really weird to see it argued that translations of a haiku are also haiku, despite not meeting the form, especially with a limerick on that page.
posted by Pronoiac at 4:11 PM on March 6, 2010


This was pretty funny, but I too do not understand the appeal of Twitter. I mean, I see value in it as a means of quickly sending out emergency alerts I guess, but that's about it.

So much of Twitter (and Facebook, etc.) just seems pretty uninteresting. Do people really have to know immediately when a friend gets a new CD, or wishes they had a sweater, or had a bad piece of pie? Does wading through the minutiae of other people's lives have any worthwhile benefit other than filling the quite moments with more noise and distraction? Can I not have a conversation with someone for 10 minutes without them sending a text, or updating their status, or making me feel less important than a bar of plasitc in their pocket?

Hmm, I should tweet that.
posted by Menthol at 5:04 PM on March 6, 2010


If you are going to be a 5-7-5 prescriptivist, you sure as hell should reference a season.
posted by BrotherCaine at 12:05 AM on March 7, 2010 [1 favorite]


Do people really have to know immediately when a friend gets a new CD, or wishes they had a sweater, or had a bad piece of pie? Does wading through the minutiae of other people's lives have any worthwhile benefit other than filling the quite moments with more noise and distraction? Can I not have a conversation with someone for 10 minutes without them sending a text, or updating their status, or making me feel less important than a bar of plasitc in their pocket?

You're free to ignore it. Which I'd prefer.

Then I wouldn't have to read comment after comment about how YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THE APPEAL OF TWITTER when some of us do.
posted by grubi at 7:55 AM on March 8, 2010


I'd prefer that you ignore the comments of people who don't understand the appeal, because I'm tired of comment after comment of people who do understand the appeal talking down those who don't.
posted by found missing at 10:34 AM on March 9, 2010


Twitter gives everyone a mic and lets them think they're stand-up comedians.
posted by graventy at 6:08 AM on March 10, 2010


MetFilter: gives everyone a mic and lets them think they're stand-up comedians.
posted by UbuRoivas at 1:42 PM on March 10, 2010


MetaFilter, dammit.
posted by UbuRoivas at 1:43 PM on March 10, 2010


Metafilter: dammit
posted by found missing at 3:16 PM on March 10, 2010


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