The most maddening defense of Twitter is that it constitutes some form of art. Boosters like to claim that compressing communication into 140 characters results in a kind of computer-age poetry. “[Twitter users are] trying to describe their activities in a way that is interesting to others: the status update as a literary form,” writes Thompson in his NYT piece. Howard Lindzon, founder of StockTwits, recently told the Financial Times that the format “is an art form.”
So is speaking through burps. Again, any attempt to defend Tweets as some kind of new American haiku runs up against the reality of site. Here’s that great 21st century New York Twitter version of the haiku poet Basho, known as “aliglia”: “OMG, I want brownies! When are we having dinner again? :)”
