Why We Tweet

The answer is actually very simple.

“Why,” asks Slate’s Katy Waldman, “do we feel compelled to tweet about our most embarrassing moments?” It’s a good question. Would you like to know the answer? Here it is:

We are compelled to tweet about our most embarrassing moments for the same reasons we are compelled to share everything else we send out onto the many channels of self-promotion through which we now craft the personalities that we previously constructed around achievements, affiliations and examples of actual effort. Those reasons are, in no particular order:

• We want people to notice us.
• We want to feel like we are part of the conversation.
• We hope people will like (and “like”) us.
• We wake each morning with a vague feeling of unease that we cannot quite bear to admit is the only rational response to the knowledge that our lives are finite and the things we do with them each day are meaningless gestures designed to distract us from the futility of every effort we make to fight against the unceasing vagaries of an uncaring universe. This persistent pain, made ineffable by the similarly unspoken knowledge that to address it would be to admit to the absurdity and emptiness of existence, causes us to act out and do anything we can to elicit the acknowledgement of our equally damned companions in this parade into the void, a yearning for validation so desperate that something as insignificant as a series of digital hearts temporarily soothes the ache.
• We don’t know or care about the difference between “good” and “bad” attention.

There are probably some other answers in the Waldman piece, but basically it’s the “we’re all going to die and our lives are so wholly lacking in meaning that we cry out for any sign of recognition, no matter how cheapened and valueless” thesis. The rest is details. Please like and share this.