There are legitimate arguments for Twitter being a useful social tool, and legitimate arguments for it being yet another purely narcissistic medium for those who want their oh-so-incisive thoughts and deep, deep feelings made public. No one bridges this divide—poking fun now at one camp, now at the other—like James Lileks, who writes for the Star Tribune in real life and tweets under the moniker @Lileks. While some bitch about their love lives, and others use Twitter just to promote their blogs (where they bitch about their love lives), @Lileks's tweets are kept light and amusing but are still strangely incisive: "What if Alison really was happy, and Elvis Costello was too bitter to see it?" "Will see Watchmen, but not jazzed; from a distance it looks like X-Men plus bong-dorm philosophy." "At the deli counter. She's cutting the salami as slowly as a first-time mohel with a hangover." What it comes down to is that @Lileks treats Twitter as what it is: not a means for personal insta-expression—because, really, who cares?—but a means for entertainment, where you get to say those funny things that don't come quite quickly enough in actual conversation.
1) The fact that you seem to be having a mini-epiphany that - gasp - Twitter doesn't have to answer the question "What are you doing?" just now should invalidate any opinion you publish on the subject.
2) Did you read Lileks' twitterstream? At all? Incisive? No. Typos muck? [sick] [[sic]] Yes.
3) I look at CP once every 3 or 4 months these days. And now I'm sad. Forever.
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