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Discussion: Live Tweeting

The internet can be a weird and wild place. Except for here at Doux Reviews, where it is weird but fairly well organized. There is perhaps no wilder part of the internet than Twitter where one unfortunate tweet from The Colbert Report got the hashtag “#CancelColbert” trending for two days. Twitter can be fun too, especially the phenomenon of live tweeting television.

Patrick, one of our frequent commenters, recently raised this question on Facebook:

“This really seems to be the season where “Live-tweeting” has hit critical mass, both by viewers and by the cast/crew of the show itself. And it ranges from SyFy having one of the contestants of their show Face Off live-tweet the episode from the show’s official Twitter account, all the way to the entire cast of Grimm hanging out at someone’s apartment watching the episode on a Friday night and live-tweeting (something it seems they do quite often, and they’re REALLY funny when they do it). And of course there’s the fans who live-tweet while they watch stuff, like your very own sunbunny. It got me thinking, what shows from the near or distant past would have been the most awesome to have in the Age Of Live-Tweeting? It could be because a certain actor would’ve been hilarious online, or a certain event that would’ve sent a shockwave through the Twitterverse, anything.”

A lot of our writers are firmly on the ‘no live tweeting’ team, preferring to watch their favorite shows with minimal distraction, while some of us enjoy the ‘watch your show with friends, strangers, and celebrities’ thing. What do you guys think? Do you enjoy live tweeting or reading live tweets? How has the internet has changed the way we watch television?

5 comments:

  1. What a fun question, Sunbunny & Patrick!

    I'm not a fan of live tweeting. However, some of that is due to my old-school style: I don't have a smartphone.

    Yes, that's right. Let's get the gasping and amazement out of the way right now. #oldpeople

    Without a smartphone, I'd need to sit on my couch with my laptop in my lap (thus angering Sam T. Cat, because that is his place), staring at the TV. That sounds awful. TV is my break from the computer. #happycathappylife

    Also, I really don't like Twitter. At all. Not even a little bit. I don't like the character limit. I don't like the impression that I'm shouting into a well-populated void--one of the circles of Hell, perhaps, maybe the one with the wind and the lusty lovers who got overwhelmed by reading nonsense and slipped into damnation. (OMG that's totally Twitter. #danteprophet?) I don't like hashtag activism, because that's not activism. It's not active to yell with a keyboard. Activism requires actual activism. #myrageisironic

    There is one thing I love about Twitter: the way we all can play with the idea of hashtags now. Sunbunny, when you posted a link to the "Reinventing Doux Reviews" article, you added a #hamsters. That was an awesome, subtle joke that perfectly matched the tone I was going for with the original post. #unsarcasticglee You can see from this comment how much I love hashtags.

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  2. I love Twitter and wish I had more time to spend on it. I don't understand how people (like sunbunny) can be so witty with only 140 characters, because whatever that knack is, I don't have it. But I think the live-tweeting is pretty cool. I just don't follow it during the episode. I enjoy reading it afterward. Which kind of defeats the purpose of the thing, but maybe I'm a bit #oldpeople too.

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  3. Live tweeting gives me something to do during the commercial breaks, which I love!

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  4. The only show that would've been absolute torture to live tweet (that I can think of right now) would be Alias, particularly the good, er, early seasons. That was a blink and you missed it show, possibly even more than Lost. SD-6, The Alliance, and the various other evil organizations Sydney et al pursued were hard enough to keep straight without constantly checking a computer screen. My mom used to take notes during the show. I wish we still had them. I'm sure they'd be funny to read.

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  5. I can't decide if live-tweeting is ruining my life or adding to the quality of it. At first I was in love with the idea but it's a whole new level of engagement I'm not 100% okay with. I feel the same way about Twitter. I mean ultimately it's been more fun to watch certain shows and share the "ooohs" and "ahhs" with other fans within the same outlet but it doesn't replace discussions or message boards which I think I prefer for the deeper layer of connection it offers.
    I am pretty charmed by cast&crew tweeting about an episode or the writers' room shenanigans (rivalries between shows in jest) that get played up on Twitter. But I have a feeling I would be just fine without bearing witness to that kind of thing, too.
    Great question, Patrick! Great post, Sunbunny!

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