Twitterpaeter

twit·terpaeter (twĭt΄ēr·pæter)

n, twitterpaeter: a person who uses the mini-blogging site Twitter

etiology
v, twitterpaeted: a state of nervous excitement

synonyms
n, tweeter: someone who obsessively tweets; ref, tweaker


When I was twelve, I came very close to buying an 8-track player. Some clever salesperson almost managed to convince me that an 8-track was a good investment… in the 90’s.

It’s not that I’m technologically backwards. I do the blog thing (obviously) and the Facebook thing and the iTunes thing, etc, etc. It’s just that I’m not very good at picking out which technologies are going to be a success.

For example, I thought DVD’s were a total fad. DVDs were going to be the zip disks of computer memory storage, or the APS film cartridges of photography.

And if right now you’re scratching your head and going, “zip disks? APS film?” then you see my point. They were so quickly replaced by newer technologies (flash drives and digital cameras) that they were hardly worth the trouble it took to replace all your floppy discs and film cameras.

For reasons unknown even to myself, I sometimes resist technological advancement the way the indigenous peoples of Africa used to resist having their picture taken because. it. might. steal. their. soul. Needless to say, it wasn’t until after the start of the 21st century that I joined the cell-phone-owning, compact-disc-playing and cable-television-watching crowd.

This is kind of the way I feel about Twitter. I do not have a twitter account, and what’s more, I’m not really sure that I want a twitter account. It's a fad. I mean, I know celebrities twitter and the President twitters and all the cool people do it.

But I am just not a twitterpater. Not yet, at least. Newfangled internet thingy.