Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Drunk Tweeting

The Dos and Don'ts of Tweeting Drunk

You had to do it, didn't you? You were drunk and couldn't wait for the morning, fearing the thought and the nerve would escape you by then.  You opened up your Twitter client on your iPhone after one too many or you popped open your laptop after stumbling home and spilled out what felt like pure genius―misspellings and all―sharing your life-changing proclamations with the world.  Then, of course, the next day you realized how stupid you actually were to divulge so much to your precious list of followers.

See, this Twitter thing is great; it's a cultural game-changer, one of the fastest growing networks of the history of our race.  But this stuff ain't no MSN to your BFF or Yahoo! Chat to your ex.  We're not talking BB Messenging your boss or a simple cellphone text to your mom.  These can all put you in a bad position if done while intoxicated, but to tweet under the influence can end up like a straight-up middle finger to basically everyone.  You're posting your Hello World to the universe, and very likely it will come out as "Wello Horld".

To help prevent you from making a big social networking boo-boo, I've put together the definite guideline for drunk tweeting. (Okay, it’s more like a top ten list).  Some might say you shouldn't tweet while drunk at all; I say go right ahead. Just play by these rules.

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1.  No emotionally-charged tweets while drunk.  It's bad enough hearing about your broken heart or your lust for the President during working hours.  Don't pollute my Twitter feed with sappy sentiments while drooling on your Stoli-O cosmo.

2.  Yes, please tell us where you're partying, who you're with, and which celebrities you think you've seen.  But make sure you ration it out. We don't need to know every 5 minutes.  Sure, maybe your nightlife is way cooler than mine, but there's a fine line between sharing it with the world and blatantly rubbing it in (or just being a big-headed ass).

3.  Some of my friends tend to forget what they've just said when they're drinking. So they end up telling me the same sentence 3 or 4 times.  I've seen this happen with tweets.  Before sending out that mind-blowing Twitter comment, be sure it's the first time you'll be doing so.  Sometimes just once is too many; twice is certainly way overdoing it.

4.  Watch your mouth, man!  If you normally don't put nasty words in your tweets, don't use drunkenness as an excuse.  You should use your same voice as always. Your followers don't want you to be one person in the day and another at night (unless that's your schtick, but I highly doubt it).

5.  Tattle-tailing is for kindergarten. If you're old enough to be on Twitter and certainly if you've got a few drink in you, hopefully you've moved on from that.  Don't throw your buddy under the bus by tweeting that he just bought a drink for some chick at the bar, when his fiancĂ©'s best friend is your follower.  Keep your Twitter thoughts simple and clearly inoffensive, or the next time you'll be drunk-tweeting about why you think none of your friends will hang out with you.

6.  Tell us funny, happy, and exciting things.  Keep a positive attitude while tweeting and your comments might actually be worth reading.  But if your mood is down, stay away from your Twitter client.  Drunk-tweets can sometimes be hilarious, clever, or interestingly weird, but if you're a depressed drunk they'll likely be none of that and can be the direct cause of dropped followers.

7.  Okay, what the hell am I supposed to be seeing here?  Make sure if you're uploading party pics to Twitpic or some other Twitter photo site that they're worth looking at.  And also that they're not too worth looking at.  Or maybe having a picture of you dancing on the bar with your pants down posted all over the Internet is a major goal of yours.

8. Hey, save it. If what you need to say is not time dependent, take a note of it and tweet it later if it proves itself worthy. Go ahead and tell us what you’re up to, whose name to use at the door, and all the other right-now need-to-knows, but when it comes to your thoughts about what happened last week or your screenplay idea, jot it down. Twitter is a mass messaging tool, not a notebook.

9. Put the damn phone in your pocket and hang out with your friends already!  I know you need to be constantly connected, but don't forget there's a real world outside social networking that is actually a hell of a lot more fun.  Spend some time with some living, breathing humans in the flesh for once.  And if you're sending out a tweet from your laptop at home with a nearly empty bottle of Jack in your hand, well for-crying-out-loud get out once in a while, will you?  (Just wait until you've slept it off this one time.)

10.  And for-god's-sake, tell us what you're drinking. If you're going to put us through your drunk ramblings via Tweetie, you might as well let us know how you got in such a sorry place to begin with.  Hopefully it's something half-way decent.

Yeah, I know. Some of these are common sense and basically go without saying. But you're drunk, aren't you? Common sense has gone out the window a few hours ago. Look, drunk-tweeting can be a mess.  But hopefully now you can limit your clean-up.  I can't guarantee your safety when tweeting during a late-night out, but follow these guidelines and you should be in better shape than if you didn't.  Now get out there and enjoy a good cocktail.

Enjoyed my post?  I'd appreciate if you tweeted it―whether you've been drinking or not.  And BTW, follow me on Twitter at @sipSLOWLY to make sure I heed my own advice.

—Joseph

[Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam]

2 comments:

Kevin Sullivan said...

How are we supposed to remember any of these when we're drunk?

Ricardo Torrao said...

very good one.. i am waiting for the TEQUILA SUICIDE from Macau - MAndarin Oriental...

cheers boss!

About this blog:

This weblog is intended for responsible legal drinkers of legal drinking age and older.   It's about cocktails.  It's about spirits. It's about mixing things up, pouring them into a martini glass or over the rocks, and taking a sip.  Sipping slowly.  If you're under the drinking age of your locale or simply not interested in consuming alcohol, please take a look at my non-alcoholic blog: sip.  In the meantime, please be rational when it comes to drinking.  It's simple, really.  Just sip slowly.