Rather against my will — and definitely against my better judgment — I recently began “Twittering.” I know, how late to the game am I? Actually, I joined Twitter way back in the spring, but as of today I have only made 8 or 9 “tweets.” There is something a bit liberating in attempting to express a complete thought in 140 characters or less, but I have to wonder how history would have looked had society been Twitterfied long ago.
Like any overly curious, too-nosy-for-my-own-good writer, I decided to go on a hunt to find out just how widespread Twitter has become; is it just for celebrities who jones for thousands or millions of fans to “follow” them online, or is it just as well-loved by us regular Joes and Josephinas who get a kick out of the short-short-short story thought factory?
In my Google spree, I stumbled across a blog that pointed me in the direction of The Guardian, which printed an April Fool’s article claiming that all news stories must be limited to 140 characters, and elaborated on how Twitter would have affected major historical news points. Here are the highlights:
A mammoth project is also under way to rewrite the whole of the newspaper’s archive, stretching back to 1821, in the form of tweets. Major stories already completed include:
“1832 Reform Act gives voting rights to one in five adult males yay!!!”;
“OMG Hitler invades Poland, allies declare war see tinyurl.com/b5x6e for more”;
and “JFK assassin8d @ Dallas, def. heard second gunshot from grassy knoll WTF?”
From the archiveHighlights from the Guardian’s Twitterised news archive
1927
OMG first successful transatlantic air flight wow, pretty cool! Boring day
otherwise *sigh*1940
W Churchill giving speech NOW – “we shall fight on the beaches … we shall never surrender” check YouTube later for the rest1961
Listening 2 new band “The Beatles”1989
Berlin Wall falls! Majority view of Twitterers = it’s a historic moment! What do you think??? Have your say1997
RT@mohammedalfayed: FYI NeilHamilton, Harrods boss offering £££ 4 questions in House of Commons! Check it out
Now we’re going to have to come up with new ones…add yours in the comments section! Oh, and see the full Guardian article here: Guardian Gets Twitterized
