I think about my favorited tweets, those fragments from the minds of random people, strangers, and personas that I like and star and compile. And then I wonder about this strange, personal space I’ve created in my own little Internet world—a limbo of floating mental and creative bits. I am reminded of Teju Cole’s tweet about Twitter . . .
This instantaneous delivery of bits of language into the minds of hundreds or thousands of other persons. Something is beginning here.—
Teju Cole (@tejucole) March 29, 2012
. . . and think that, maybe, my collection of favorited tweets is an online vault of swirling inspirations, of 140-character crystallizations of half-formed ideas in my head, of shared sentiments at specific moments, often with people far away (and I’ll likely never meet).
It’s not quite a stagnant archive: I don’t file these tweets away and forget about them. Yet for some reason, they were not fit to retweet, or I didn’t want to retweet them. Instead, they were—and are—bits and pieces solely for me: An accumulation of tiny but agreeable and intriguing things, all of which influence or reflect me.
I “favorite” tweets, I “like” Facebook status updates, I “favorite” YouTube videos, I “heart” Tumblr posts. On Facebook, my likes are generally actions for someone else: to encourage, to share and roll around in a friend’s happiness, to acknowledge another’s struggle. On YouTube, favoriting is functional: I favorite music tracks and add them to playlists I play regularly. And on Tumblr, on which I “like” posts less frequently, I suppose it’s just another action of acknowledgement—a thumbs-up in the shape of a heart.
But on Twitter, it’s different: favoriting is less about someone else and more about me. The process is about plucking the juicy bits from others’ minds and imaginations and tossing them into a cauldron—a volatile place that mirrors my headspace at any given moment.
And although I don’t retweet or share them, they weigh more to me—and are timeless rather than timely. So I decided to sift through and share some of my favorites, and in the process I realized how I don’t rely on Twitter simply for news and information, but also for those fleeting, random moments of clarity and satisfaction and empathy.
All those words and somehow you manage to say even less than you would with whitespace.—
dreamers awake (@dreamersawake) March 30, 2012
If you don't get your way make a different path.—
Bobby Solomon (@thefoxisblack) April 19, 2012
I wonder if robots ever talk through the backs of fans and pretend they're human.—
Matt Roller (@rolldiggity) February 16, 2012
siri how can I hate jonah lehrer more than I already do?—
name (@georgelazenby) March 02, 2012
Activism won't save the world. Disco might.—
umair haque (@umairh) March 09, 2012
The strongest indicator that a civilization has reached the point of no return is the disappearance of public shame.—
Epicurean Dealmaker (@EpicureanDeal) November 25, 2011
“That’s what the world is, after all: an endless battle of contrasting memories.”—
Matt (@AmericanRoulete) December 13, 2011
Most lives have a similar amount of pain in them – it's just distributed differently.—
Alain de Botton (@alaindebotton) January 12, 2012
I think there should be a travel blogging conference, where people can air their vast sense of entitlement, every three days.—
David Whitley (@mrdavidwhitley) April 26, 2012
don't see how privacy settings are anything but a placating distraction, like the button pedestrians can push to make a traffic light change—
Rob Horning (@marginalutility) April 27, 2012
All interpretations are valid.—
Anil Dash (@anildash) January 16, 2012
The phenomenon observed is inseparable from the observer—
Paul D. Miller (@djspooky) December 31, 2011
I wonder if Abe Froman ever made it to lunch?—
Chris Clark (@chrisclark1729) October 16, 2011
How Pinterest Will Help Syria #FiveWordTEDTalks—
Evgeny Morozov (@evgenymorozov) February 28, 2012
A book. #longreads—
Teju Cole (@tejucole) February 20, 2012
Is ham and cheese on rye making us lonely?—
Jared Keller (@jaredbkeller) April 26, 2012
No, YOU look like I've been drinking.—
The Bosha (@TheBosha) March 14, 2011
I just assembled a piece of furniture and didn't shed a single tear. This is a new experience for me.—
Shaun Usher (@LettersOfNote) April 20, 2012
Today I will be mostly destroying Ikea furniture—
London Elektricity (@LondonElek) January 11, 2012
Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination. —Oscar Wilde—
Matt Pearce (@mattdpearce) February 29, 2012
in the dark, in between songs, I saw Bjork take a sip from a sippy cup. I think it had crystals in it—
Alex Pasternack (@pasternack) February 23, 2012
Sitting transfixed listening to the Amen loop for first time, over and over, trying to understand what the hell it was #junglememories—
High Contrast (@linkcontrast) December 10, 2011
Blah blah blah new Facebook features blah blah blah new strain of herpes blah blah blah.—
Mike Monteiro (@Mike_FTW) September 22, 2011
Saw Jim Cameron's Titanic on April 15th. This time around, delirious Rose on the wooden plank did indeed see the correct sky.—
Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) April 20, 2012
Love is robbing me of words these days and it is the most welcome thief. Let us have love. The words can wait.—
Roxanne Krystalli (@rkrystalli) March 07, 2012
Thanks for posting this. And my I know how you can make a templete of twitter inside your post. I wish that i could learn about it, and make my page better. Anyway, i love your writing. Thanks for share.
These are lovely, and I like your take on interacting with favorite tweets. First time around here–great blog!
Hey Maddie! Welcome. Glad you liked this. I may have more to say on my whole favoriting process across websites, so please visit again.
This is really interesting (and has made me think about the way I use – or, rather, don’t really use – the ‘favorite’ function). I like this: “favoriting is less about someone else and more about me. The process is about plucking the juicy bits from others’ minds and imaginations and tossing them into a cauldron—a volatile place that mirrors my headspace at any given moment.” I wonder what it says that although favoriting is ostensibly a private act – “An accumulation of tiny but agreeable and intriguing things, all of which influence or reflect me” – it’s done in public, in broad daylight. The person whose tweet you’ve favorited receives a notification. Anyone can view your list of favorite tweets. Perhaps it’s one of the last bastions of mystery online – anyone is free to interpret the list, but there’s no real context for doing so, and ultimately only you know how you’re using the function and what each of those agreeable and intriguing things means to you.
“Perhaps it’s one of the last bastions of mystery online – anyone is free to interpret the list, but there’s no real context for doing so, and ultimately only you know how you’re using the function…”
Yes! I love this. After writing this post, I concluded that I was essentially curating my own universe — or perhaps creating my most perfect being, enmeshing all the best ideas and traits of others, yet also their most favorable flaws (much of what I favorite is pessimistic and rather dark, so I wonder what that says about me).
I sense another post coming on this! Thoughtful comment, Miranda. Thanks.
Thanks, Cheri. These are addictive! Some are so weird and funny—hmm, art!
Yep, there are some intriguing accounts and personas on Twitter — their individual tweets and entire Twitter feeds both interesting forms of expression.
I love the idea behind this… Also, we use “favorited” tweets in a similar way: I collect them as little snippets of beauty to look back on. I favorite funny, insightful or beautifully written tweets. I also use “favorites” as bookmarks — when I’m going through my timeline and I do not have time to read something I’d find interesting, I favorite it to come back later.
It makes me happy that my mushy, lovey tweet made it onto this list…. Thank you!
Roxanne, I want Twitter to create a “bookmarked” feature because I don’t like favoriting a tweet as a reminder to return to it later. (Instead, I open the link and save the post to Instapaper.) It’s rather silly, but that’s how anal-retentive I can be when it comes to online organizing.
I loved your mushy-lovey tweet! Your tweets in general are calming and grounded, if that makes any sense.
Not for the first time, I suspect your twitter timeline is much more interesting than mine!