Here's an idea.
The tweet is the newest form of literature.
[THEME MUSIC]
Ah, Twitter, everyone's favorite microblogging platform.
A place where the social media elite can trade
links to obscure Tumblogs.
Or you can read what your former coworker's girlfriend
had for lunch.
Or you can profess your undying love for the Biebs.
And where you can become involved
in a nascent and highly constrained brand
of literary experimentation.
Yes, I know, it sounds a little weird.
But think about it.
If you use Twitter, you've probably
agonized over the construction of a tweet.
You can't just say whatever you want and go all willy-nilly
with your character count.
There are rules here.
Well, actually, there's kind of only one rule.
Twitter's 140-character limit forces you
to creative in your tweet construction.
"Each time Mark made advances toward Marie,
she'd immediately pretend she was asleep.
This made for awkward office lunches."
And the relationship between constraint and creativity
is like peanut butter and jelly, like Toejam and Earl,
like John Woo and doves.
Self-imposed, technologically determined, or culturally
developed, constraint is oftentimes
the very basis of creativity.
Filmmaker Orson Welles even said that the absence of limitation
is the enemy of art.
The sonnet, still life, ballet, the sonata,
are all forms which are based on essentially arbitrary rules.
A perfect simple and practical expression
of artistic constraint is the haiku--
which, when you think about it, actually has
a lot in common with the tweet.
Both are social forms meant to provide insight and be shared.
Both are meant to stand alone, independently of other haikus
or tweets.
They have extreme limitations placed upon their length.
And the best examples of each have a kind of turn
that offers the reader a compelling insight.
In haiku, it's called kireji, a place of emphasis,
which outlines the structure of the poem
and where disparate ideas often come together.
"How cool the feeling of a wall against the feet.
Siesta."
We don't really have an equivalent
to the kireji in English, but some of the best tweetmakers
use arguably a very similar construction.
"Work finally begins when the fear of doing nothing
exceeds the fear of doing it badly."
"One day, Justin Bieber will turn forty and we'll all go,
'I can't believe Justin Bieber is forty,' except some of us
will be dead."
But Twitter isn't the only place that writers
are experimenting with creative constraints online.
Oh, no, no.
With so many little text entry boxes
ready for creative expression, status update literature
is a perfectly modern format, available to anyone
to both create and to read.
Respected author Rick Moody wrote a story
on Twitter about a date to Coney Island.
There has already been a Facebook novel.
Not a novel about Facebook, but a novel written using Facebook.
There is even a Gchat status novel in the works.
Sure, it's easy to challenge the legitimacy
of a story constructed in something as seemingly
fleeting as a status updates.
But as poet William Carlos Williams said,
"Poetry is a machine pruned to a perfect economy."
And that's double-extra true when you only
have 140 characters or less.
What do you guys think?
Can you write Twitter literature?
Or Twitterature?
Let us know in the comments.
And if you like clicking buttons,
there's a really good one right here.
You should click it.
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Holy flurking schnit.
The Bronies episode was by far our most-commented episode.
So first of all, 25,000 subscribers?
That is insane.
Thank you.
And welcome, Bronies.
Let's see what you guys had to say.
athiyah and a group of upvoters wanted
us to get some Brohoof action going, so ready?
Here it is.
Brohoof.
Zoot101 makes a point that people might not
dislike Bronies because they're challenging masculinity,
but because they're really effusive about their love
of "My Little Pony."
Which is a fair point.
In case you haven't already checked them out,
there are really great discussions
about the Brony community on both Equestria Daily and Know
Your Meme.
We'll place some links in the description.
Vadi1980 quotes Miyazaki, who said,
"In order to grow your audience, you must
betray their expectations."
Love it.
TraytonMoyer brings up a very relevant "XKCD" comic.
But then again, when isn't "XKCD" relevant?
EternalChaosBringer actually had some really good advice
for pretty much everyone.
He says, "It's OK, to not like things.
Just don't be a dick about the things you don't like."
Professed Brony JoeM007 is concerned
that we have maybe dragged him into a battle
that he's not prepared to fight.
Which is fair, but unfortunately, Joe, you
can't really stand still on a moving train.
One thing that we didn't get to talk about
is the female contingent of Bronies, called Pegasisters.
shadowyoshigamernerd, a Pegasister,
chimes in and says that she doesn't
think Bronies are changing what is considered manly
but rather what defines a man.
Which is nuanced, but really interesting.
And in case you guys haven't noticed,
we'll see you next week.
Because you're awesome.
[THEME MUSIC]