So, this morning, Matthew DeVries broke on FriendFeed that something suspicious was afoot on Ye Olde Internet. Shortly thereafter, Robert Scoble and Michael Arrington re-broke the same news and, at that point, it suddenly took hold in the collective conscious of everyone who wanted to try to generate conversations, hits, and links from it.
‘Holy shit!’ They said together, sharing opportunistic glances. ‘Here’s our chance to make people subscribe to us! Quick! We must act!’ And then, they all grabbed their suddenly Munchian heads and screamed, ‘EVERYBODY PANIC!’
That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, Twitter’s under attack and that means that the Panic Wagon is back in town and everyone is pretty much trampling everyone else for a foothold. Imagine, if you will (and even if you won’t), an out-of-control cable car careening comically down a vertiginous hill, impossibly overloaded with screaming people (many of whom are inexplicably dressed like clowns or Juggalos), with people falling or being pushed off as hundreds of more mob the damn dinging thing in an attempt to scramble over the dying to get on. That’s pretty much what’s happening.
‘Scraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamble!’
Robert Scoble, of course, is the one at the helm and ringing that infernal bell which has the Pavlovian equivalent effect on bloggers that an ice cream truck has on children: they’re losing their damned minds. How does he do it? By not actually saying anything at all but by opening the microphone to the entire floor at once. In fact, that’s Robert’s genius through-and-through: he combines likability and an earnest ‘aw shucks’ down-to-earth personality with a play at self-deprecation that makes even the newest and hopeful wannabes feel like they’re part of the smile machine. Robert doesn’t invite argument by establishing a firm opinion and then daring anyone to topple it, no; instead, he looks at you wide-eyed and says, ‘Hey, you’re part of this, too! Look what’s going on! What do you think about it?’ We should all take notes but, instead, we’re all scrambling to canonize our opinions and trying to talk to him like we’re on round six and are now standing side-by-side at the urinal chatting happily about last week’s episode of How I Met Your Mother.
The issue here, of course, is that our reaction to the news eclipses the actual news. Does anyone actually care that Twitter is down other than that it gives us something to scream at each other about?
You grab me roughly, shake me like an unpleasant baby, and scream at me, ‘This is social media, you dumb bastard! What do expect is going to happen?’
I stutter and sputter, ‘Uh, well, uh…’
But you’ve turned me loose and off the Panic Wagon I fall. You give me the Enzyte wave as the Panic Wagon bursts into flames for some reason. Everyone wants it to burst into flames but no one is quite sure as to why. All they know is that they’re having a damn good time and, truly, a party is never a really good party until something is on fire.
As for me? I stand up, brush off the dust, and look around. Ah, there it is: the stop. I’ll wait right here because I know that damn thing’ll be back around soon and I know I’ll punch out a grandmother for a foothold, too.