The Five Types of Tweets

I've been on Twitter for a few years now, and far too much of my brain power goes into it. If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know how frustrated and worked up I can get with the way people use Twitter. The fact is that not everyone acts how I want them to, which isn't wrong. In fact, the world is probably better that way. Not probably, definitely.

Anyways, in this post I will attempt to classify all types of tweets into FIVE TWEET TYPES (TT's). It's up to you to determine if that's a boob reference.

TT #1 - Status Updates: These are probably the most common types of tweets. Anything from "it's so cold in my bedroom" to "going out for the night to forget about how sucky my life is" to the classic and incredibly frustrating "#sadtweet" or #happytweet". These less than 1-140 character gems basically come from a lack of creativity, or a lack of having anything else to say. People like to tweet, but most of the time they don't have anything interesting to say, so they just go ahead and pretend that they're a celebrity which would mean that everyone cares about their current mood or what they're doing. While sometimes interesting and sometimes helpful, the vast majority of TT #1's are a simple waste of Mike Twitter's server space.

TT #2 - Attention Tweets: I've boiled this down into two subtypes. Subtype #1 involves the complaining and ranting tweets. That's the kind when something bad happens so the person decides that their problem is everyone else's problem and goes on a rant about how they're right and the other party is wrong, or how it's not fair that someone else got selected for cheerleading captain instead of them. Any twitcomplaint you see about hating being in class will fall into this subtype. Basically any time someone does something that the given person would have done differently, we are all subject to that person tweeting incessantly about it, all the while exaggerating every part of said story and trying to justify their completely unnecessary complaining. Subtype #2 is more refined complaining, this time more about not being able to get something that a person wants. Most of the time this deals with relationships. When a boy likes a girl but the girl doesn't like him because his whole life is comprised in these first two types of TT's. It can also have to do with grades, jobs, and many other things. These tweeters are somehow convinced that tweeting about not getting want they want will somehow make that thing they want become achievable, while it almost always does quite the opposite.

TT #3 - Family/Friend/Pet/Food/Drink Tweets: These tweets come when a given tweeter is excited about seeing a family member, a friend, or a pet that they haven't seen in a long time... or when they are excited to ingest a certain food or drink. Almost all of those tweets contain a tag to someone else's Twitter account, or an Instagram photo, or both. The lovey tweets about a romantic partner are contained in this subtype. A lot of times the intention of these tweets is to convince another person that you are really happy to see them, even though it may not be true. These tweets are almost always well-intentioned, although tweeting pictures of a premium grilled chicken salad and a vodka-cranberry isn't exactly why Mr. Nicephore Niepce invented photography way back in 1822. Although I can't say that for sure, I never did manage to meet the guy. Pretty sure he didn't speak English anyways.

TT #4 - Quotes: From song lyrics to movie quotes to Bible verses, these tweets are a large part of what you see on Twitter. While it's a shame that people can't be more inventive themselves, you certainly can't fault a person for letting someone else's work influence their life. There's nothing wrong with these types of tweets, provided you indulge in them very lightly. Nobody wants to follow the girl who's gonna clog your timeline up with a different Taylor Swift song lyric every half hour. This is also grounds for people to prove their intelligence. A simple Aristotle quote pushed to Twitter can take your online intelligence level up an entire point; you didn't already know that? Proceed to TT #4 at your own pace, but please just don't spell anything wrong. That is disrespectful, and also I hate it.

TT #5 - Obvious and Dry Analysis and Updates about Sports, News, or Politics: While there are certain people who offer interesting and insightful opinions about the above things, most non-professional tweeters really screw this one up. It's like the "THE STEELERS ARE KICKING ASS" or the "OBAMA IS RUINING AMERICA, HE'S WORSE THAN BUSH" or the "CAN'T BELIEVE HURRICANE SANDY FORCED HOSTESS INTO BANKRUPTCY"... alright that last one was my own doing. These normally come from people who believe that they know something about current events and they want to get their opinion in to let people see that they're paying attention.

So there you have it Internet, the five types of tweets, as thought of by Jon Anderson. Humor wasn't a type, but most funny tweets fit into one of the types anyways. Funny tweets that don't conform are the best kind, so I didn't want to include good tweets in with a condescending list. If you comprise a tweet that legitimately does not fit into any of these five tweet types, you can consider it a successful tweet and you should treat yourself to a favorite of your own tweet. It feels good, I promise.