Yesterday afternoon, I logged into Twitter to survey the fallout from the previous night's online revelry only to find my account in the penalty box! I just sort of sat there staring for a bit... not exactly surprised, but a little incensed.
About once a week or so, I guzzle an unhealthy volume of beer while I'm engaging in social media. What might seem like clever or cute statements at the time, often turns out to be lewd, lascivious, and outright delusional nonsense. It's embarrassing, sure, but since I'm not affiliated with any public office or high profile organization, it's doubtful my verbal indiscretions are capable of causing any sort of PR harm of any kind.
I suppose I have about as much of a chance of discovering who was responsible for reporting me to the thought police as the whereabouts of Malaysia Air's missing Boeing 777 has of being divined by a Muslim witch doctor performing shamanistic rituals on the terminal floor. Personally, I would never attempt to silence anyone by way of tattletale tactics. Period.
In the way some movie actors claim to be averse to watching their own performances on the big screen, I leave it to my close friends to inform me if I'm crossing any ethical lines in my writing. I don't find it especially helpful to review whatever facetious vomit I sloppily hammered-out through bloodshot eyes at 2:00 AM.
When someone asks, "What's the difference anyway?" chances are, they don't really want to know if one exists.
My following on Twitter is a highly diverse assortment of personalities - one that I've amassed organically over the course of five years or so. Having a presence on Twitter is important to me, but not so important that I'll begin self-governing my own beliefs to acquiesce to some vaguely defined set of schoolyard conventions. Agreeing to abstain from egregiously making unsolicited mentions seems reasonable enough, but golly gee... in this age of political correctness, it's just a matter of time before some feminazi accuses someone of misogyny for asserting so much as a shred of masculinity. It seems these days one need walk on eggshells lest simple observations are deemed as sexist, racist, hate speech, or some other ist.
I admit that I was probably colouring far enough outside the lines to warrant having my account thrown into the Twitter Gulag. I hope anyone who was genuinely offended by my remarks can understand that it was merely the ravings of a drunken lout in a state of temporary insanity.
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