Twitter Wit

Sure enough, Valleywag.com founder and editor of Twitter Wit: Brilliance in 140 Characters or Less Nick Douglas asserted in the book himself that the most interesting users promptly ignore the site's prompt, “What are you doing?” by writing zingy one-liners, the prime example of comic brevity. Douglas found some of these “twitterers” so astute that he compiled the nuggets of wisdom into a book, lifting from the accounts of Stephen Colbert, Sarah Silverman, Russell Brand and Ashton Kutcher as well as those of no-name regular folks.

Identifying the twitterer by his user name only, Douglas lets the actual tweet take center stage. While there must be some form of algorithmic sequence to the tweets as featured in the book, they are not specifically categorized or asked to be taken in context, thus relying on the reader's own cultural savvy to “get” the joke regardless of how particular or dated it is.

Take this tweet by hodgman for example: “Just deactivated my Facebook account. I suddenly feel 25 things lighter.” Those unfamiliar with Facebook's ubiquitous “25 Random Things About Me” craze that swept the cyber-sphere early this year won't be in on the gag; those who do get it may understand the “brilliance” of the one-liner if uttered at the time, but are unable to appreciate the quote in full, timely effect. This is a downfall of publishing live-streams — trying to immortalize the fleeting and passé.

The ones that do work well — or in “webspeak,” make you LOL (laugh out loud) — are the personal, less-contrived moments that combine life with unexpected metaphors. From bcompton: “The face-painting at the birthday party this morning was subpar. One girl asked for Tiger and got Surprised Basketball instead.”

Religion is also an easy target that received a few, well-deserved chuckles; from musician and songwriting Jonathan Coulton: “Daughter asked me who was the first person ever. Evolution seemed too complicated so I went with creationism (it's the baby Jesus, right?).” Other noteworthy inclusions are the concise observations so spot-on about the mundane it makes it extraordinary: “My ennui is at an all-time whatever.”—idvssuperego.

Douglas' layout does itself the biggest disservice when some tweets just seem like real twits unless you're forced to consider the source. Take this gem: “I was inspired by today's snack, so I built a Trushiplane. It's a truck inside of a ship inside of a plane. And I just BLEW it UP.” Not funny. Not brilliant. Just incredibly random until you realize it was written by the fake internet doppelganger of “Transformers” director Michael Bay. Now that makes sense.

Furthermore, the book is littered with the least creative form of funny: sexual puns and innuendos. It is your typical frat-boy humor executed with better vocabulary and sentence structure, a dime a dozen in locker rooms that are neither droll in person nor print.

Overall, the “brilliance” the subtitle notes is almost hyperbole when only every other page elicits true laughter or introspection; the thin book easily flies by as readers search for their next, random hoot. Douglas' attempt to board the Twitter book-wagon is neither as helpful as Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time by Joel Comm nor as interesting a concept as Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less by Alexander Aciman and Emmet Rensin. Featured twitterer apelad puts it best when he tweeted, “I respect your right to express your opinion as long as you respect my right to slowly lose interest in whatever it is you're talking about.”

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