It’s Time to Sue The Telegraph… Twitter’s ‘Tired and Emotional’ Moment

Posted on January 14, 2009January 14, 2009 by Ewan Spence

Just for (a moment of) clarity, I don’t mean the journalistic use of Tired and Emotional or Ugandan Discussions, but I do want to talk about that style of phrase from a cultural point of view, where a group of people start to build up in-jokes, phrases and their own lexicon.

Stop and think about the shorthand we all use every day. Even phrases that only crop up in the online world such as The Reality Distortion Field around Apple products are ones we are all comfortable using, although that one is easily understood by many outside of our gated 2.0 communities. The #joiito IRC community has another online example; a name followed by either ++ or — has meaning beyond the coding/variable syntax.

No matter where they are, humans start to build up their own little phrases and meanings. Couples have their own traditions and sayings that are special to them but mean little to others. The same is true online, and I’m wondering if one measurement of a successful community is the creation of these phrases?

If that is true then Twitter has had an epiphany in the last few days. While the community rapidly brought about the “@” syntax to denote a reply, and RT for re-tweeting something that others should see, these were style functional languages, and sorting out the syntax of Twitter. Now I’m seeing the start of those emotive phrases.

The British Twitter’ers have jumped on “I’m off to sue the Telegraph” over the last few days. A quick search on the micro-blogging service and you can see it building up, and being passed around the community (and others asking “have I missed something?”).

So it may mean nothing, and right now it’s little more than a signature.. but it is the emotive weight it carries that interests me, not the actual definition. The forming of personal connections irrespective of distance or the media used is a fascinating use of the tools available to us all.

And if you must trace back the originator of the phrase, then prepare for a shock Mr Daily Mail. I told you @wossy would change Web 2.0…