Friday, August 3, 2012

The Metatweet & the 2012 Games

Yes. This is one of those things that I am guilty of. When I go on Twitter, I can't help but sometimes make comments on Twitter itself. On the people who tweet. On the types of tweets they've tweeted. On my observations of the Twitterverse in general. So I have come to calling this phenomenon, Metatweeting.

So far, I have been on Twitter for about two weeks. As it turned out, it was a great to time join since the 2012 Summer Olympics were about to start. (Side note: I guess now that there are only one Olympic games per year, we probably no longer need to distinguish Summer from Winter games.) Having Twitter, and the internet, at my disposal during the games has been an interesting twist especially living on the opposite side of the planet from the games.

 Here in Hawaii we have taken to labeling everything Olympics with the ubiquitous "spoiler alert!" Since we are about 12 hours away from London, we get all of the results long before any of the action is televised. However it has all been worth it to be able to see Olympic fans like Mr. Samuel L. Jackson on Twitter getting excited just like any one of us would watching our own hometown heroes in the games.

But as advantageous as it has been to have that kind of access, it has created its own controversy on the part of the tweeters and reluctance on the part of the readers to get on Twitter before seeing the coverage on TV.  There are those that rail against anyone who posts too "early" the results and yet many who relish the idea of being able to have one over on all their less-connected friends. Like the "fans" that follow celebs on Twitter, during these couple of weeks it would seem that people are having a love/hate relationship with the Twitterverse itself.

So this post about metatweeting is really about the leaps and bounds of not only technology but of an event that brings the world together in one city and it tearing it apart across the globe. Here's hoping for the 3D (Winter) Olympics in 2014!

No comments:

Post a Comment