My Dog Argo Just Set Up A Twitter Page

There is simply no getting around the rising popularity of Twitter these days.  It is a pop-culture Tour-de- Force, as everyone from Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton to Joe the plumber are now Tweeting.  To be sure, Twitter has gone well past just “Generation Y” and has made it all the way to mass media appeal.  ESPN, the local news, celebrities, athletes, your neighbors; they are all tweeting like canaries on a meth binge. 

For the uninitiated, Twitter allows you to set up your own page and then send out short messages throughout the day that announce what you are thinking or doing.  Similar to Facebook, the best way to get people on your Twitter “followers” list is by going and “following” them on their list.  This reciprocal altruism to further one’s own cause is Darwinism at its finest and who wants to be left out of that?  No sir, not me I tell you.         

As I recently shared on these pages, I am now a bonafide “Facebooker” and can talk the social media game with the best of them .   But truth be told, this confident exterior I put on may be nothing more than a front masking some of my much deeper social media insecurities, as I’ve been extremely apprehensive about launching my own page. 

Aside from not being particularly social, my philosophy has always been: “it is none of my business what you are thinking or doing, which in turn makes it none of your business to know what I am doing or thinking.”   This simple rule has served me well for 35 years and abandoning it now would be like waking up tomorrow and brushing my hair with my left hand, and I am not left handed.   It is not natural and I am extremely unsure of what the final result will be.   But then again, maybe this is just the self doubt talking.  A few positive affirmations in the mirror later, I realized  this is a new Social Media World we live in and I’d better get into it, or just get out altogether.   So if Sarah Palin is going to Tweet, well I am going to as well. 

I’ve had a very difficult time understanding the appeal of Twitter for quite some time now, but after setting up my page and surfing around reading other people’s pages, I can find a certain amount of logic for celebrities or anyone else in the public eye to be using Twitter.  In a nutshell, it allows them to interact directly with their fans, and/or the public at large, without the tainted smell of the media skunking things up.  I can also see how hot mega brands like Apple or Starbucks could use Twitter, as it is a perfect platform to engage customers with things like new product launches and company news.  And again, no media to hassle with.        

But Twitter of course is not just for the famous and super cool; it is for everyone else too.  Whether it be Sally the receptionist or Frank from down the street, everyone has a voice on Twitter.  It’s not just Jet Blue and Whole Foods Tweeting about business either, as companies of all sizes and in all industries are Tweeting now.   From the front cover to the back cover of the Yellow Pages, everyone is able to Tweet.   Just a few hours ago I saw  Rick Dickert, who is the morning news guy in the helicopter that reports traffic jams and car chases, is sending out Tweets.  I know Tweeting while driving in California is illegal because of the new no-texting rule, but I bet helicopters skirt that law altogether.  What a comforting thought.   But I digress.    

To be real honest, what’s made me nervous from the beginning about Twitter is figuring out what I am going to tweet about?  It’s nearly impossible to get someone to listen undivided when sitting face to face at cocktail hour, so how in the heck am I supposed to keep all my future Twitter friends interested in reading my Tweets?  I could not escape this sinking feeling that my Twitter page was going to be a flop. 

After thinking about it for a while, I decided that maybe I am not the one to be Tweeting.  Argo, my 12 year old French Bulldog, seems to garner all sorts of interest just about anywhere I take him.  People absolutely adore Argo.  He is quite social, extremely funny and despite a gray hair or two is still pretty handsome for his age.  So I thought who better to have a Twitter page than Argo. 

What you need to understand about Argo is that he keeps it pretty real.   He is not the type that will prostitute his Twitter page by embellishing or trying to be something more than he is.  He would never think of Tweeting to fit in or because everyone is saying it is the cool thing to do.  No, that is just not his style.  Argo tweets sleep and Argo tweets poop.  Argo tweets sleep again and Argo tweets belly rubbing, followed by eating and/or begging for food that he can eat, another poop and sleep, along with a few farts mixed in between. 

I am absolutely convinced that people must love his candor though, as he is getting more and more followers by the day.  Here I sat all cynical at first thinking people are only interested in themselves and that nobody would ever take the time to read someone else’s tweets.   This is a new Social Media world we are in where everyone is interested in everyone, and they are all reading each other’s tweets rather than just their own.  Aren’t they???