The BBS Twitter
I confess, I am an older man, and do not understand much about wireless, PayPal, SSL, and all that.
But I do understand The BBS Twitter.
Let me tell you a story about my youth. I was down the hill from my house, walking beside the creek, on a hot summer day. I was looking for tadpoles. A small carton of milk was warming up beside a cheese sandwich that was wilting inside a wrinkled brown paper bag in my one hand while I carried a clean glass jar with lid in my other hand.
Suddenly, across the creek, I saw Scott, the neighbour’s boy. He wasn’t my friend, but we did play together. He had a small tree branch in one hand.
“Hey,” he yelled across the creek. “What are you doing?”
“Looking for tadpoles! You?”
He held up the branch. “I got two caterpillars!”
“Great!” Just then, his mother called.
“I gotta go!”
“Ok, see you later!” And he left.
That was not The BBS Twitter.
Imagine instead he yelled across to me, then someone else yelled about how their car had just broken down, then one person followed by 45,654 other people showed up, and the one person said “At the Oscars,” and 45,654 people then said “At the Oscars” all after each other, and then a man holding up a semi-nude picture of a twenty-five year old woman in front of his face showed up and said “Tadpoles? http://www.tadpoles.null/ufj65aj.”
That would not be The BBS Twitter.
Instead of being outside, you are in a basement in front of a glowing screen, and all these things happen and you have cheese puffs, not a cheese sandwich, and a warm soda, not warm milk, and you have pale skin and no glass jar and all you do is stare at the screen and occasionally move your mouse to click “retweet”.
That is almost The BBS Twitter.
Call me an old man, but I miss that creek down the hill in the summer sunshine.
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