I assume you're alluding to some particular story in the media of which I am blissfully ignorant. In all fairness I do think "Twitter rants" are possible in principle, though a single rant would have to comprise dozens of individual posts.
Your post about the full-spectrum lying we are subjected to reminds me of a related thing, the amplification of nonsense into matters of public comment. I heard an example recently on US National Public Radio. A glib, effeminate male (the only kind they hire) was babbling about a certain singer who did a version of the song "Me and Mrs. Jones." He went on about how only a black man should sing that song and how no one could be whiter than this singer, etc. A female hired giggler tittered in the background.
As I switched it off I thought, "A bullshitter bullshitting about bullshit."
31 May 2018 at 05:04
Word inflation seems built into language - words lose their force and urgency by the inbuilt tendency for exaggeration. Of course this has been accelerated to absurdity by the mass media.
Just as a small allotment shed cannot 'blaze' - the brief comments possible on Twitter can never amount to a 'rant' - and yet the term has been used at least 1.5 million times so far...
Therefore, anybody who describes anything on Twitter as a 'rant' is a liar; therefore anybody who describes a Twitter rant should not be believed - Because, that's the thing about liars: they should not be believed!
But of course the Establishment, the mass media, all large institutions, all individuals in leadership positions lie, every hour of every day; in every paragraph (they sometimes include a true sentence or two, to make their lies more effective) - we swim in a sea of lies: liars lying about liars.
We need a new word to describe 'us' - the kind of people who spend many hours per day reading, watching and discussing the lies that liars tell about each other...
Or maybe the word 'people' will itself suffice; given their massive majority.
"Inflation, lies and the "Twitter Rant" - and the people who notice"
4 Comments -
I assume you're alluding to some particular story in the media of which I am blissfully ignorant. In all fairness I do think "Twitter rants" are possible in principle, though a single rant would have to comprise dozens of individual posts.
30 May 2018 at 15:02
@William - More like an interrupted sequence of discrete ejaculations...
30 May 2018 at 17:37
A gibe, sneer, taunt, jeer, brickbat, insult, barb; these will do for Twitter.
(I know from experience that some of the comments you wisely reject for posting are little more than rants. Thank you!)
30 May 2018 at 22:29
Your post about the full-spectrum lying we are subjected to reminds me of a related thing, the amplification of nonsense into matters of public comment. I heard an example recently on US National Public Radio. A glib, effeminate male (the only kind they hire) was babbling about a certain singer who did a version of the song "Me and Mrs. Jones." He went on about how only a black man should sing that song and how no one could be whiter than this singer, etc. A female hired giggler tittered in the background.
As I switched it off I thought, "A bullshitter bullshitting about bullshit."
31 May 2018 at 05:04