Tuesday 22 February 2011

I Know Not What I Do...Therefore I Tweet




I've long told friends that I hadn't set up a Twitter account yet because who would follow me? I'm simply not that interesting. That's not just a little playful self-deprecation - I'm really not that exciting. Don't worry, I have a strong sense of self-esteem and everything, but I never felt anyone would really give a crap about my instantaneous musings or thoughts.

So why the change of heart? Why does that Twitter widget sit on the right side destined to be untended with the rest of my neglected site? Well, it was really my experience at TIFF (the Toronto Film Festival) this past year that did it. Over the last few years, I've been meeting more and more Toronto area bloggers and film writers (we take up half the basement of a local pub during our boisterous monthly get-togethers). It was great to bump into many of them during the fest, share screenings with them and compare notes, but as I talked to more and more of them, I realized that Twitter was an important communication vehicle that I was missing - spreading news of available tickets, noting locations in lineups for Midnight Madness, giving scoops of possible interviews and sharing recent postings. It suddenly made some sense to me...

And now that I've actually got a decent phone (OK, all I've used it for so far is music and playing "Angry Birds", but just you wait...), maybe I can jump into the fray. Especially with the Hot Docs filmfest coming up in a short couple of months. I've got a lot of catching up to do, though, since I don't know a hash tag from a tinyurl.

This may prove fruitless, but it's worth a shot. If my pearls of wisdom go unheeded, so be it. If it helps me connect with real live people, then it'll have been a roaring success. Kind of like this blog...My Wikio rating keeps dropping, but I keep meeting more people (virtual and in the flesh). That, to me, is successful and it's all I need to keep going. That and of course the occasional mention in The Daily at MUBI.

Oh, I went with TheLogicalMind as my Twitter name. We'll see if that still makes any sense in a few months...

3 comments:

James McNally said...

Welcome to Twitter, Bob! Er, I guess I should be welcoming you over there. In any case, hope you find it useful and fun.

Fletch said...

It's okay, no one is all that interesting on Twitter. Well, except for Chuck Sheen, of course. He's the bees knees.

Bob Turnbull said...

I just can't get on the Charlie Sheen bandwagon...It's like listening to Glenn Beck - a combination of being bored and feeling a great deal of sympathy for someone who obviously needs help.

Thanks again for that #ff.