I was just thinking to myself…you really have to hate twitter if you search “I Hate Twitter” in all CAPS.  I can just imagine some kid sitting at home all angry about how Twitter murdered his family so he opens up his browser and googles “I HATE TWITTER.”  It’s good to know I’m not alone in the world and I’m not taking crazy pills.

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“I hate Twitter because I’m so addicted to it!”

“I hate Twitter because I have no time to vlog anymore”

“I hate Twitter because it’s down all the time”

That’s lame.  If you willingly use Twitter then you can’t really hate it because if you really hated it you wouldn’t use it in the first place.  Here’s an example.  I hate Broccoli (I feel like I’m eating trees and I hate the taste). However, you’ll never see me eating broccoli and hear me say “I hate Broccoli because it’s so addictive.”  I stay the hell away from broccoli.   If Broccoli enters a room, I would walk up to Broccoli and punch it in it’s green healthy face.  That’s how much I hate Broccoli.  That’s hatred.

I was looking to find people who really hate Twitter, but instead I found a bunch of posers.

So before I go any further, let me make this clear.  I TRULY hate Twitter…no if’s, and’s, or but’s.

Why I hate Twitter

The natural question to ask is, “Why do you hate Twitter?”

It’s simple, Twitter murdered my family.

Ok, so maybe not, but to explain my hatred of Twitter it helps to understand my irrational hatred of things.  Here’s a random list of things I hate in no particular order and why I hate them:

• Miley Cyrus: That song where she sings “I’m just being Miley” drives me up the wall…and I don’t like the fact that she sounds too manly (maybe this is related to my insecurity issues)
• Disney Channel: Have you tried watching any of their shows?  Hannah Montana, some other show about some rich twins who own a hotel, etc… They are all crap.  If my kids ever watch that, I’ll punch them in their face…
• Pocahontas: When I watched the trailer for this movie I saw a talking tree (aka Grandmother Willow), and was like, “What a talking tree?? That’s ridiculous!”  Since then I’ve refused to watch the movie.
• Broccoli (already mentioned above)

If you watch South Park.  I’m kind of like Cartman.  Cartman hates all kinds of random things from Jews to hippies to prostitutes.  Don’t get me wrong, I like Jews, hippies, and even prostitutes (everyone’s got to make a living, right?), but what amuses me so much about Cartman is that he just loves to hate.  In the same way once I latch onto hating something…I don’t want to let go (just like Rose didn’t want to Jack to let go in Titanic).  However, after a little more thought on the subject I’ve been able to break down the main reason I hate Twitter.

I hate hearing about Twitter everyday.

In one day I’ll normally hear Twitter mentioned like a thousand times.   Here are all the places that I normally get Twitter drilled into my skull:

• On the TV: CNBC (a financial stock reporting tv station)– “You can check out all the great stock tips on our Twitter page at blah blah blah”
• On the Radio: 102.7 Kiss FM (local LA top 40 radio station)– “Ryan Seacrest here, you can check out all my awesome celebrity dirt by following my Twitter…”
• On the Toilet: Businessweek Magazine lying around– “Twenty Ways to Boost Your Business with Twitter”
• At Home: My Mom– “Ben, do you have a Twitter page?”

It’s like that screeching sound you hear when people drag their nails across the chalkboard…that’s what it’s like every time I hear people mention Twitter.  Something is definitely wrong when even my parent’s know about Twitter!  So part of my hatred for Twitter is because I hear about it all the time, but the bigger picture is that I just hate things that become extremely popular seemingly overnight.  It’s like a phobia of mine.  To better illustrate this i created this graph of My Hatred of Twitter:

The graph is pretty simple.  The more I hear about Twitter the more I hate it.  When Twitter first came out, I was cool with it because no one was talking about it.  About six months ago, I started noticing a few more people talking about it, mildly annoying, but bearable.  Now complete strangers come up to me and say “You need to be on Twitter,”  it has passed from Annoying to Full on Hatred.

Here’s the funny thing, I’ve known about Twitter since they first came out.   I thought it was a very interesting product/idea when they first came out.  I thought it was cool that you could send updates from you cell phone to your Twitter account all for free.  I even went out of my way to learn all I could about Twitter.  I read interviewers with the founders, read about their software architecture, and even told other people how I thought it was a cool product.  But I never thought it would be as popular as it is today.  And it’s because it’s become so popular that I’ve developed my hatred for it.

Things always worry me when people act super crazy about them.  I take a very cynical view of mankind.  I think once everyone starts doing something there is cause to worry.  It’s like how Spider Man has Spidey Senses when danger is around, when everyone starts doing something or talking about it alarms go off in my head…to stay away.  I’ll call this power Lemmy Senses (named in honor of those adorable Lemmings).  Here are examples where my Lemmy Senses went off and I stayed away until it was safe:

• The Macarena Dance: The younger Millenial generation might not have been old enough to experience this “phenomenon,” but I remember how it was all the rage.  That ludicrous dance and music.  Once the music came on it was like moths to a flame…everyone to the dance floor.  I steered clear.
• The Atkins Diet: It seemed at one point everyone was talking about the Atkins diet… Oprah was even on it and even Fast Food restaurants had Atkins friendly menu items.  It was the thing to be on if you wanted to lose weight.  I saw people lose a ton of weight fast…only to gain back just as fast.  But then out of nowhere it just died.
• Nazis and Hitler: This before my time (and country) but if you think about it Hitler managed to convince people that it was OK to exterminate Jewish people.  It was the “in” thing to do.

Ok, so comparing Twitter to Nazis and Hitler is a little extreme, but the point of all this is that the reason I get weirded-out by Twitter is I feel most super popular things don’t last and sometimes people die because of them.  But I’m starting to digress, let me continue back on some other reasons why I hate Twitter.

Other Reasons for Hating Twitter

This post is starting to get a little long…so I’ll rapid fire the rest of my  reasons for hating Twitter.  I hate Twitter because …

People talk about it like it’s the next greatest thing … like it’s the Second coming of Jesus great.  “Twitter is so awesome like I can get so much feedback from all of my followers blah blah blah”  Will Twitter wash my car for me?  Will it wipe my butt?  If Twitter did that I might like it better.

If Twitter washed my car, I'd like it more...

It’s a waste of time. People talk about how great Twitter is because they only allow you to put in 140 characters for each “Tweet” which makes people be more concise and only say things that are “valuable.”  Sure that might be true, but if you are spending a lot of time responding and updating then it eats up just as much time as it would if it wasn’t 140 characters.   People will also argue that it’s valuable to get feedback and discover new things before anyone else does, but is that really more valuable than the loss in productivity?  Actually you know what would be faster?

Tweet without typing...Twitter's newest feature!

Just stick electrodes in my head and stream all my thoughts to Twitter…that way it wouldn’t take up any time.  Twitter should look into that feature.

The Lingo and Jargon.   Like all “cool” things Twitter has to have it’s own language: Tweets, Fail Whale, Twittering, Twitwits, Twatted, Twitterfic, Tweetarded, etc…  To an outsider it’s pretty overwhelming to look at something like this:

I mean what the hell is that?  I see “RT” is that Real Time?  When I see an @ sign I think of email address, so @pinkheels must be someone’s email addresses?  “14 Tips to Deal with Conflict” I understand because it’s English.  Then there is some link to a website called “Tiny Url” following it which I can only assume must be a link to these 14 Tips.  Later on it says this is from some user called TweetDeck.  Putting this all togther I can only assume that TweetDeck is telling me that he/she will be real time emailing to someone at the email address @pinkheels about 14 Tips to Deal with Conflict.  Awesome to know!  Thanks!

I didn’t come up with the idea myself!  Yeah, I’m just plain jealous I didn’t come up with Twitter.

Conclusion

So there you have it.  I have said my piece.  I really hate Twitter.

***UPDATE 4/3/09****

I’m happy to report that if you google “I hate twitter” now my post now appear on the first page of google search results.  As of now I’m the 5th result.  Finally someone who hates twitter is on the first page!  I wonder if it can get to number 1?

I also wanted to point out some other guys I found (after a little more digging) who actually hate twitter like I hate twitter:

• Russell Scott
• Grayson Davis
• Ann Bibby
• Bob Phibbs

***UPDATE 4/14/09***

I’m sad to report that I’m no longer on the first page of google for searching “I hate twitter.”  I think my last update screwed up my chances …after I posted that I no longer appeared on any search result.  So my guess is that google punished me for talking poorly about their beloved Twitter.  Yes,  I know technically they haven’t bought twitter yet, but it’s only a matter of time.

In better news if you do google the phrase “I hate twitter so much” I once again show up on the first page of the google search.

***UPDATE 8/18/09***

It’s been an interesting past 4 months in Twitter Hateland.  At my last update I was not even on the first page for “i hate twitter,” but as many of the commenters have let me known, I moved up to the number 2 spot just behind Grayson Davis at OpenSalon.com.  However, on a whim today I decided to search today and was pleasantly surprised by this google search result:

That’s right folks.  I’ve made it to the top and can now claim the title of Number 1 Twitter Hater in the World (at least the world according to google).  Thank you all for your twitter hate support.  Without all of you searching, linking, and commenting I could have never gotten to where I am today.  Thank you again!  (Hopefully my reign at number 1 will be long and glorious).

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