Porta's Eyes..."what is ‘Twitt-ah?’”

Bliss of a Twitter-free moment

By Tyler Brûlé

Published: September 25 2009 21:32 | Last updated: September 25 2009 21:32

When was the last time you had one of those conversations where a single sentence restored your faith in humanity? Was it roughly 20 years ago when you encountered someone from eastern Europe whose words of sacrifice and perseverance behind the Iron Curtain made your western ways seem bloated and empty? Was it more recently, when a former banker told you a harrowing tale of how he lost everything (the smart townhouse in Brussels, the two Audis, the leggy Latvian girl) and found happiness living a slimmed-down life in a tiny flat and working as a bartender in Antwerp? Or was it with a niece or nephew who abandoned their Playstation and asked you, their dear auntie or uncle, to tuck them in with a good old-fashioned bedtime story?

I didn’t expect to be particularly moved when I sat down for drinks with professional acquaintances in Tokyo last week – but halfway through a second round of drinks, while discussing topics from why young Japanese aren’t travelling so much anymore (“the outside world is too much of a challenge when life is so convenient back home”) to the chances for Yukio Hatoyama’s new government (“he’ll be thwarted by the bureaucracy every step of the way”), the most beautiful and innocent question I’ve ever heard suddenly tumbled across the table. While chatting about the role that new media channels played in the recent election, I asked if there was a lot of guff about Twitter in the national newspapers or on Japan’s main television networks. After a few moments of grunting, groaning, chin-stroking, head-wagging, group consultation and more grunts, one of the group blurted: “Tyrer-san, what is ‘Twitt-ah?’”

I can’t recall if I got hot chills or teary eyes first, but in an instant I was covered in goose-bumps and filled with this extraordinary sense of joy. My mouth moved from a weak grin to a beaming smile to a chuckle of disbelief.

“What’s so funny, Tyrer-san?”

“You’re serious?” I asked. “You really don’t know what Twitter is?”

“No, I promise,” replied the young-ish gentleman.

“You really, really, really have no idea?” I inquired one more time.

“No idea, Tyrer-san.”

“Then you should count yourself lucky and consider yourself truly blessed,” I replied.

Shortly after, I settled the bill, hailed a cab and headed back to my hotel. I could have chosen this epic moment to celebrate with a round of pin dom (Japanese slang for pink Dom Perignon) but chose to reflect quietly in search of the greater meaning of this moment.

As I silently repeated those four syllables (“what is ‘Twitt-ah’”?), I felt a wave of envy. How wonderful to live in a highly evolved digital society and not have been tainted by yet another media fad, I thought.

Soon after, those pangs of envy shifted to cold resentment. How lucky to not have your e-mail inbox crammed with random mindless publicists, acquaintances and even friends inviting you to join them or follow them on Twitter. It was bad enough having the world invite you to be “LinkedIn”, but the daily dilemma of what to do with these unwanted invitations is far too stressful. Do I ignore it? Is there a limit to how many times they can try to reach me? What if I actually rather like this person but I don’t want to follow them? Do I send an e-mail of apology? Does it demand a handwritten letter?

Little surprise that this resentment of my blissfully unaware Japanese friends made me angry. How has it come to be that adults in mature settings can bring themselves to say things like: “I just made a tweet about my walk to work”?

Excuse me. You did what on your way to work? Did anybody see you doing it? Do you know there are laws against that sort of thing? You’re lucky you didn’t get arrested for whatever it was you were doing in public because it’s offensive and it pollutes the environment. On second thought, perhaps you should have been arrested for invading the privacy of others, for making your “tweets” all over the place and fouling up an already overburdened media and social networking landscape.

For the past few months I’ve been thinking about lobbying the IT department of this newspaper’s parent company to erect high walls, deep trenches and develop the digital equivalent of cauldrons of boiling oil to pour on all messages that look remotely as if they’re inviting me to a world I have neither the time nor interest in signing up to. Donning the appropriate protective attire, I’d rush to the top of the battlements and push my boot against the lever releasing a cascade of scalding oil on the correspondence below. “Ha! Ha!’” I’d thunder. “See how all your links and tweets stand up to that!”

The only reason I haven’t bothered contacting the IT team about building a razor-sharp ring of steel around this newspaper’s network of inboxes is that I’m quite confident that this whole movement will soon take up residence with that other great digital venture and live happily ever after in Second Life.

Tyler Brûlé is editor-in-chief of Monocle
tyler.brule@ft.com
More columns at www.ft.com/brule