Internet Infamy

Awhile ago, John and Kate and Sam and I went to Restaurant Insignia. I'd made reservations and tweeted Chef Jason Dady to ask him what we should get, because I knew he'd changed the menu up. I called and made a reservation. All pretty standard for me.

When we were eating, our waiter, who knew who we were, asked me if I was ohmypuddin. Indeed I am, I said. He told me he'd read my blog and heard about me, presumably from Jason Dady and his staff. I knew from our Arts & Eats experience that some of Dady's chefs know who I am, because they ask Jason Dady "is that ohmypuddin?"

Last year, the sommelier at Il Sogno had read my blog post and remembered me.

While my particular bit of Internet fame is nowhere on par with major blogs and web personalities, it is still interesting. It's kind of weird to be known by your username instead of your actual name. It's weird when people know you by your handle and not your face. When they know things about you because they read your blog, or follow you on Twitter, and yet you've never met them and never spoken to them.

Internet writing is such a bizarre thing, in some ways. I feel like I'm not completely revealing myself on the Internet, but I am putting a lot of information out there. You could get to know me pretty well without meeting me. But I'm writing this here at home, by myself. Writing is such a solitary act that I forget I'm putting it out there for everyone to see. And I'm startled when I find out people are reading it, processing it, remembering it.

I'm not quite sure what my point here is. I guess I'm saying that enough people are reading this and then meeting me in real life for it to become clear to me.

You're out there, reading me, judging me. Better start watching what I say.

Nah, fuck that noise.

Don't be scared, everyone. It won't bite.

I've heard you out there. You say it's stupid, it's just people talking about what they had for lunch. You don't understand what you could possibly say with only 140 characters. You don't get how you would spend any time on it. You hate it. You refuse to look at it.

You're a Twitter hater.

I'm not talking about the people that simply don't understand - I'm talking about the vehement ones, the ones that won't even look. The ones that have never actually gone to twitter.com, but claim to know exactly what it's about.

A pox on you.

If you're not on twitter, you're missing Shit My Dad Says. It's a 28-year-old man living with his 73-year-old father. His father? Is hilarious. Absolutely hilarious.

And you're missing it, you hater.

Tweet this

I read this blog post today, and it got me thinking about Twitter. I'm on Twitter (@ohmypuddin) and I love it. I like following local restaurants and meeting social media folks. I like that I can have a one-on-one conversation with companies. I also use Twitter for work, where I tweet as an entity. You see, I view Twitter as a way to send messages one-to-many AND one-to-one. It's a chance for me, at my job, to converse with many people and one person at the same time.

This guy doesn't get it though. He compares Twitter to CB radios, because he just follows random people he finds. He doesn't seek out anything that might have personal meaning to him, or people he could learn from. He doesn't try to find people he knows personally.

Here's one of the ways I think twitter is awesome: I was on dora.fm (it's pandora + twitter) and I liked a song I'd never heard of before, "Kool Kids" by Justin Trawick, so I tweeted it. Justin found me on Twitter and sent me a message about it.

See? I liked a random song and the singer found me. Now, because he took the time to find me, I'll listen to his other songs and follow him on Twitter.

To me, that's the whole beauty of Twitter. It opens up this whole world of other people and relationships. I hope that blog writer realizes that some day.