Trending now... The Fact That I HATE Being Told What Is Trending

They talk about Twitter like it's some reliable information source when, in reality it's nothing more than common schmucks posting *hit that they think others actually care about. I don't even know my Twitter password or username and can't remember the last time I logged into it. Honestly, I don't even know how Twitter works or any of the "protocols", like using the @ sign and all that crap.

Furthermore, by saying something is "trending", they draw people to it thereby MAKING it "trend"! Talk about manipulation. LOL. How can they be serious? They can pick any tweet they want, say it's "trending" and then all of the good little robots click on it, read the forced propaganda and make it "trend". Honestly, how can people not see the irony in that? It's like putting a collar on you, leading you around and you deny you're being led around on a collar. Where's the "idiots" smilie?

I know the feeling man, I made a twitter yesterday just so I can follow my favorite DJ's, and people are trying to follow me and i'm just like "dude seriously I JUST made this account" -blocked- I don't even have a picture and people are following me. I just want to know where my fave djs are playing, i don't give a f@#* about who follows me, in fact just don't even click follow on my account xD. Saves us both the trouble of clicking.

How did I know when I opened this thread, wrestling was going to be brought up? I can hear Michael Cole now - "TRENDING WORLDWIDE!" They've been pushing that heavily for a long time - usually to great success, as 'trending' means lots of people are talking about it. Hate it or love it, it's going absolutely no where. All these networks would be idiots for dropping it - it's literally free advertising. It's something you'll either have to tune out or roll with.

This reminds me, the other day on yahoo canada, I saw the number one trend was Monica Lewinsky.
I didn't bother to find out why, but I thought it was strange.

Even ATS has a trending tracker!

Seriously though, Information is hard to sort through when you're bombarded by it -- the media, the internet, news sites, even search engines! How can you find exactly what you're looking for? (Answer: Use specific phrases, such as "modern objections to prudential hedonism" as opposed to "what is the meaning of life?" )

I agree that the modern "trending" trend is ill-disguised advertising... but from an IT / security point of view, or TPTB using trending analytics to determine "threats to national security".... there's value in being able to sort data that way.

Just ask Google Ads

reply to post by Astroboletos


Google ads is lightweight compared to other tactics. Every join a website that wants you to provide answers to secret questions as a "security measure" - personal questions? Absolute and total data mining.

And heuristic checksums are all the rage now. Imagine web spiders that can crawl the web looking for your IP, username, or even just your grammatical patterns, and literally build a personality profile of you, if enough is out there, based upon keyword usage, frequency and repetition of terms, predispositions, sites you visit, stated interests?

It's way,way, way deeper than Twitter... though Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Myyearbook, etc... are ingenious because they can trick you into just handing over tons of personal info not only willingly - but obsessively!

Orwell got the systems right, but underestimated how FUN it all would be!!!

#JustinBeiber@#every12yearoldgirlintheworld OMG I just bought some Adidas shoes and passed a Taco Bell on my way home!!!!

87,451,927 hits. All by excited and laughing fans.

~Heff

ETA: Oh and a real world use? Politicos commissioning studies about which words, other than proper nouns, tend to trend. Then write speeches literally dripping with the words that most often trend at any given time. Pure and instant Pavlovian slavishness accomplished.

reply to post by Hefficide


Now that's some food for thought! Heuristic data mining, Pavlovian responses to words. It's a Brave New World we live in, n'est pas?

For the record: I've never considered getting a Twitter account. Micro-blogging can have it's merits, when used to build awareness and DENY IGNORANCE, but Heff, you're absolutely spot-on when you say that these "celebrities" and the such are worthless when it comes to this stuff. Same thing with most average people's Facebook accounts.

If we could trend the latest discoveries in bioscience, the worldwide rioting (Rome, Athens, and Spain -- not just the ME), or gummint corruption.... well, the unwashed masses tend to overlook blogs like that for more interesting fodder.

I've NEVER understood why people are so fascinated with celebrities -- perhaps someone can explain why they have more "followers" than political or scientific figures?!?

reply to post by Astroboletos


Some celebrities earn their fame. They're brilliant actors, thinkers, writers, visionaries. Some get famous because they're stunningly beautiful. And some get famous because their Dad defended OJ and their mom used to be married to a famous tennis player - and some PR agent, somewhere, apparently got drunk enough one night to say "Hey, what about a show about the Kardashians???"

Personally the people I'd love to see Twitter feeds from are dead. Mark Twain? Oscar Wilde? Kurt Vonnegut? Arthur C Clarke? Carl Sagan?

Now those might be some interesting Tweets and I might actually care about what was trending.

Maybe it Twitter goes elite and requires an IQ test and review panel before you can have an account with "Tweet" capabilities!

Unfortunately that will never happen. Twitter is stealth marketing. Loreal pays Kim Kardashian to tweet "Hey, this new eighty dollar rejuvenation cream from Loreal? IT'S THE BOMB!" And instantly Loreal has 80.000 new customers. It is basically a commercial with the illusion that you are participating - because we all know that Kim Kardashian reads every reply to her Tweets personally...

Brilliant marketing - again from code that's been extant for at least 20 years ( Instant messaging ) - all Twitter does is make it public. It's genius.

But, still, I'd love to watch ONE hour of TV and not be told what's trending.

~Heff

Yes, this is one of those things that has just never resonated with me. Social media. Trending. The internet can already be impersonal and formulaic enough without it having to be shortened into an incredibly short letter limit, and people's e-status being directly related to their number of "friends" and "likes."

Speaking of likes... that's another thing I can't get into. The post popularity mechanic of everything online today. Everything gets up and down votes. People downvote everything they don't like, without offering a reason or even an opinion as to why. They just want to suppress it because they don't personally like it. It's an instantaneous, knee-jerk reaction. And it's evolved into a form of internet shunning or shaming, the way people shun or shame people who don't dress the way they would like or look the way they would like, etc. etc. etc.

In my opinion all of the above eliminates the capacity for internet postings to be substantive or creative, while also rendering it far easier to be dismissive or outright hostile. Because heated arguments on the internet attached to articles generate more hits. The internet has long since transformed into a bastion of incivility and trolling in most places, and these things simply contribute to it in my view.

With that said, I can acknowledge that Twitter and other social media sites do provide those who use them with a rapid means of spreading news and communicating when the need arises, and I have seen some positive changes or at least some inertia toward positive changes generated by them.

I can also acknowledge that this is probably one of those things that, as I get older, I will be increasingly surrounded by. You know, the things I can't relate to or resonate with whatsoever, and feel increasingly alienated and disenfranchised by as everyone else who's younger and less set in their ways eagerly adopts them. Like reality TV, and the death of the music album with actual album art that colors the mood and tone of the album as you listen to it, beginning to end, as a complete project.

Such is life, sadly. Peace.

reply to post by Hefficide


Twitter isn't a genius idea. Twitter is a place entirely for self centred, ego centric techno geeks that, in effect, love shouting "look at me, i'm great".

Think about it for a second without any rose tinted spectacles. What would you make of the person walking down the street, shouting things like "just had a slush puppy! #icetastic!" (because i have noticed you can never have enough exclamation marks on Twitter), or "really want those new Nike trainers"........we would be thinking "poor person, where is care in the community when you really need it?".

In short, Twitter is really not for me - it is an amalgam of everything i hate about modern times (which is not to say i hate modern times, i don't). That said, i totally agree with your OP Hefficide. How annoying is it to be told what is trending? *#'@!! annoying - that is how annoying it is!!!!!

@#annoyed.

Didn't realise what trending was until I read Heff's post....
Don't really feel like I've missed out on something.

reply to post by Hefficide


I am so 100% with you on this.

I hate hero worship. I hate vanity worship. I hate it!!! God, it's hard to be a proud American when my entire culture is based on this senseless, fake, worthless, mindless, superficial, stuck-up, ignorant, retarded, lazy, good-for-nothing mindset. Heff, have you ever seen the movie "God Bless America?"

I strongly recommend it.

You know what's trending? How I don't GIVE A FLYING SH#$ 3%#$%#$^ $%$% 32%#$4 5#$$%$%#%!!!!!!