HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT THIS TWITTER THING?

So, the co-author of this blog and I have been out of the country for a while on a decidedly non-minimalist vacation. This morning I thought I'd take a minute to see what's going on with our friend Mr. Bogue, and...

It seems he's finally outgrown/out-crazied the whole "minimalism" thing and is now a "cybernetic yogi". How very postmodern! He has officially disowned minimalism and revamped his image. Ev is now officially a man of the future. He even left Facebook! OMG. What's he doing instead of Facebook, you ask?

Twitter. Which is completely different from Facebook and does not in any way represent the death of Western civilization.

I joined Twitter way before it was cool (I want to say 2006) but decided that it sucked so I hardly ever used it. Maybe it sucked because, way back then, nobody was using it, and nothing interesting was being said. Or maybe it sucked because there is really nothing interesting you can say in 140 characters or fewer. Reducing oneself to short, pithy statements is Communication Lite™. It's just the next step before Newspeak. I fucking hate it. It oversimplifies things. Also, when you look at someone's feed (PS, the terms "tweet" and "feed" kind of make me barf) a large chunk of what you see is his or her responses to other people's tweets, and that is just annoying. Why would you want to see half of a conversation? It's like overhearing some asshole talking on his cell phone on the bus. He's not saying anything interesting, and you don't have much of a context for it unless you can hear the person on the other end of the conversation. But you're still listening.

Everett Bogue has recently exploded with love for Twitter and hatred for everything else; he goes so far as to claim that "cyborgs" communicate only via Twitter and face-to-face. It's a way more postmodern way of living than my "Friendster and pagers ONLY!!!!!!1" lifestyle. And that bubble's totally never going to burst. Twitter will never go the way of Myspace or any other social networking website. IT'S JUST NOT POSSIBLE. IT'S THE BASIS OF ALL THAT IS GOOD IN THIS WORLD.

Or, as Bogue says, it rivals the development of language in the evolutionary history of the human race.

Yeah. There's really no other website that can possibly put you in touch with countless like-minded individuals from around the world. I can say with some certainty that Twitter is not unique, as Bogue orgasmically proclaims it to be. It's like a chatroom, but not necessarily in real time, and with asinine character limits. It's stupendously unimpressive. It's the internet, but smaller. I've met a lot of people online - I've been an internet dork since the late '90s - including some of my best friends and my husband, none of whom I would ever have met without the internet.

So yeah. WOO INTERNET. But seriously, Twitter? It's the wave of the future, just like Pepsi Clear and WebTV and the Walkman. Something new will come along, and all the Everett Bogues of the world jizzing their pants over Twitter's onetime grandeur will have to come up with an excuse to disown it, just like they disowned Facebook and minimalism and non-designer jeans.

How to do the Exact Thing That I'm Doing

If you're reading this blog, you're probably thinking "Wow, whoever writes this blog on the fucking internet must be a real genius. But how can I do the exact same thing?" Well dear readers, have no worries. I'm here to tell you.

The first thing you'll need to do is pretend that writing a blog is in some way unique or complicated. Creating lists and how-to's is a great first step. (See, you're off to a great start already). The other thing to remember is that tricking people into paying money for things that you've already said is important. Try creating an e-book as well as a subscription-blog, and charge for bullshit advice. Then, in each of those, recommend one of the others. This is different from a pyramid scheme/internet spam circle. How? Because we say it is. (If you're wondering what an e-book is, btw, it's like a real book, except it hasn't been printed by an actual publisher).

Finally, the most important thing you can do is to stand on someone else's shoulders, or if you're lucky, you can find someone who's so vain and simple that writing a blog making fun of them will be a piece of cake.

Don't forget to check in with me on FourSquare, buy my book "How to write a book about writing how-to books", and read my twitter. (@blandman I kno!)

Minimalistpedia

Dude.

Have you ever looked up Everett Bogue on Wikipedia?

He doesn't have his own page. It sort of makes me feel for him.* Maybe he's taking a minimalist approach to his internet persona, restricting himself to farbeyondthestars.com, evbogue.com, twitter.com/evbogue, and facebook.com/evbogue. Google him and you get 16,000 results. He has written books and made TV appearances and is frequently interviewed on other blogs.

Robot fetishism, farting, Oligonychus sacchari, and the number 9630 all have Wikipedia pages dedicated to them, but Everett Bogue does not.

HOWEVER.

When you search his name on Wikipedia, you get a few results that are actually relevant to him. His name is associated with location independence, unschooling, and, uh, Battlestar Galactica!

I just think that's darling.*

He made a number of contributions to New York Magazine, but Battlestar Galactica is what he's known for on Wikipedia.

I wonder if he's still into that show.

Anyway, I think someone should start a Wikipedia page for Bogue, strictly stating facts. Just the cold, hard facts. Memorable quotes, of which there are many. A link to his Minimalist Guide to Sex? (Crap, candles aren't on my list of 57 things, so I guess I can't have awesome candle-lit minimalist sex.)

I think I'm kind of developing a soft spot for ol' Bogue-y. He seems like a nice, if delusional and flaky, person.* There. I said it. He mentioned us on his Twitter and kind of led me to believe he might have a sense of humor about himself (though he still hasn't sent us that love note). So I hope he won't mind my saying this. It was recently brought to my attention that purple (as we all learned in preschool) is a combination of red and blue. Red is the color favored by the notorious Bloods, and the Crips prefer blue. So maybe, juuuuuust maybe, Ev wears his purple tank tops as a sort of armor, shielding himself against two rival gangs on the mean streets of San Francisco.

Or maybe, y'know, not.

* These statements may or may not be endorsed by more than one of this blog's two authors. Today's post brought to you by the one who voted for Cynthia McKinney in 2008, lovingly mothers a perpetually vomiting cat, and eats a lot of raw vegetables.