Twitter

I spend a lot of time on Twitter, well TweetDeck specifically. It has ended up becoming my first source for news because I'm not really news mined enough to just go and check out Washington Post, or NY Times that often. I'll glance at CNN every now and again, Hufington Post when I decide I want to laugh at the right then hate the left for bieng just as bad as the right, and periodically I check out BBC for the fuck of it. I'll read interesting sounding news links, as bad as it is, I have sensationalist leanings toward my news, and every now and again the sensation is actually news and not just attention fodder, so it works out.

I have had varied conversations with people I don't know, people I don't know if I'll ever meet and those have been interesting. I'm am entirely intrigued by my followers. I consider myself to be a comic and art person, but I have a habit of talking about movies a lot. My followers astound me. I truly wonder how they find me. I know it's from the front page, or my '@' mentions to people, but still, I'm an 'Internet Nobody' and there are a few people I don't know IRL who take any time to read the stupid things I spout every day. I may post a movie quote, a song lyric, other quotes, or I end up just cursing the stupid things in life that happen. I promote my dA account periodically when I post stuff, but other than that my Twitter is just a place for me to yell into the void, just so what I have to say is heard by something and doesn't just echo off my skull.

But for me this relatively short and not super verbose journal is a wee bit of a shot out to some of the people I follow. On TweetDeck I have people broken down based on how/why I follow them, in some cases people who know each other if I have no other reason, and what they do. From Left to Right it's: All Friends, DA People, Thinkers, News, Webcomicers, Comics, Directors, Actors & Celebs, Critics and Reviews, Writers, Real Friends. My real friends are so far to the right because they as a collective don't say as much as the other groups, and they're always a pleasant surprise when I finally sit down and read my tweets. The groups have grown as the number of people I follow increases. It is currently at 152 accounts. It will grow. I break them down as such so going through all of them is less overwhelming. Some of the groups were one group until I realized I had too many in one group, Webcomics/Comics is one such, as are 'Directors-Writers' it's broken apart for my sanity.

But from all of my groups there are my gems. I'm taking a moment to highlight some of the accounts that I follow and a little bit about why.

@Joe_Hunter: Somebody I watched over on dA starting just this past January. It's been an amusing ride thus far. Conversations btween here and dA are an amusing combination of 'why the fuck do you have the Internet' and 'Hay! This movie owns!!1!' and 'Fuck I want to shoot my 13 year-old self in the face'. A person I gab with and horrify because it's all good and amusing.

@ThatKevinSmith I like the man's movies. They make me laugh and were a part of my shift in movie culture this year, it's been an avalanche ride since I finally sat down and rented Clerks back in February. His lve for his wife is easy to see, and the crudeness all in all I find amusing. I'm also a nosy frig, so taking a peek at someone else's life with as candid as he is in intriguing.

@mental_floss: Just about any sort of trivia can and will pop up here. I like trivia, I love the magazine and it's one of my favorite sites to check out when I'm killing time. It's also one of the accounts I retweet the most because their random trivia is always interesting to read, and I think some people need more random facts in their life.

@JonathanAmes: I was first introduced to his larger than life writing when I picked up 'The Alcoholic' out of the blue in my campus bookstore, and I do not regret that move. His writing is real life fantasy, some thing seem amazingly fantastic, but it's not shroud in magic, it's from his amusing way of looking at the world. His tweets are about his new TV show, and... not sure what else, I've only recently started following him on twitter.

@PauloCoelho: I loved The Alchemist when I was first assigned to read it back in 9th grade Pre-IB English I. I liked the adventure, I had a great introduction to his writing then. I didn't read another thing of his until I got to college and bought The Alchemist again, and some of his other books. His tweets are interesting, they kind of make me evaluate my life, my world and the people around me. Not so much in a negative fashion, but to get another look at things. He's very active with his posts, philosophical.

@EdgarWright and @JasonReitman I put these two together because it's their combined banter that makes me laugh. Edgar is doing a daily photoblog this year, so those are interesting to see. I like hearing about interaction between the directors as they're both editing films at the moment, or as they're taking them to different festivals.

@Slashfilm, @FirstShowing, @MovieGeeks a trifecta of movie reviewers and critics right there. I hear about a air number of movies from these accounts which is cool. Only downside to following them is it makes me really want to get to a movie festival some time, and also makes me annoyed that nothing interesting happens in Virginia, and if something does, it's far as fuck away from Hampton Roads.

@CameronStewart is the writer and artist for a Harvey Award Winning webcomic Sin Titulo. He has angry comments about Canada, nice comments about Canada and talks about drawing professional comics. He shares sketches periodically, and is pretty entertaining

@CalaveraKid another person makin' with the funny pages on and off the internet. His two comics are awesome to see when he has the chance to update, life and conventions happen often. Kukuburi is full of adventure, bright colors and a story that I can't wait to see how it continues. His other comic Butternut Squash is a slice of life comic that is fun to read. Fantastically silly happenings

@hawkster @ananathymous @aidosaur @konistehrad and @grohac all together inter-tweet and their collective conversations are entertaining. Hawkster draws Applegeeks, Ananthymous writes for both AG and Johnny*Wander which Aidosaur draws. The last two are friends of theirs, but between reading J*W and them on twitter their lives are highly amusing to read/see about. I've been reading AG for years and totally hopped over to J*W when Ananath started pimping it last fall.

@Serafinowicz I really only know him as 'Dwayne' from Spaced and the roommate from Shaun of the Dead, but he's been amusing to follow. He spends a bit of time every day tweeting short jokes which I know I've retweeted on more than one occasion.

@StehenFry He just is. I dunno really what to say, he's an English actor. Comedian, friend to Hugh Laurie who is a technophile and writes a blog where he periodically reviews new bits of technology that gets released. I enjoy following him. I dunno what else to say.

@Theory101* he is my best friend and a good third of things I quote are because I know he'll get a kick out of it. We frequent different universities and talk and quote the same shit all the time. He is The Ficus of awesome, he's a special frig, and that's how it should be. He's also the inspiration for Ficusxander the Great, yeah. Fuck yeah, best friends.

Well, for other people I follow and who happen to follow me, it's nothing against you for me not saying something, I just had more to say about these. This year I've been wrapped up in the romanticism of movies and film which may in part explain why I chose these accounts to begin with. I may do this again, go through the accounts I follow and comment on them. I'd work at not repeating accounts from this one, or I may go to some of those I copped out on and give better reasons for why I like following them. I mean, this is barely the tip of the following iceberg here. I think it's easy to see where I lost concentration when I typed this, but it's still something. I've been needing to just write for me for the past week, and here is it. I guess this one's for me, and for everyone I decided to pimp.

Jasmine P.

*note! he has a locked account as is, so no link will be provided...as if I don't openly tweet to him anyway, but no link nonetheless. Enjoy :)