A Celebrity In Our Midst

We at Twitter are all aflutter because Keith Olbermann, host of Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, is now tweeting, and he has actually followed some of our friends. We're like high school girls again. Even the guys are like high school girls. We talk among ourselves about who KO is following, and we tweet him, hoping to catch his attention and get a response if not a follow.

I sent him one tweet that was especially good, I thought. I said I was getting wiser in my old rage. Isn't that cute? Well, KO didn't respond, but then what can you expect from a guy with 39,000+ followers, all tweeting him hoping he will pick the one tweet that is really great, and it will be yours? KO is shorthand for Keith Olbermann, if you didn't figure that out. I was not talking about KOing someone, but that would be a good bite -- to KO KO with a great tweet! I should send that one to him.

You have to understand Twitter to really get this. Every 140 words or less has the potential to grab someone and cause them to interact with you. Eventually you develop a group of friends who interact with you regularly and at least read what you are saying. To be heard is the key to your Twitter identity, and if you can count some influential tweeters among your friends, then you have Klout. No, that is not mispelled. It is a program that measures your influence among your Twitter friends. My Klout score is 67, which is pretty high. I have some cool friends. Celebrities, if you will, on Twitter.

That's the thing. Who is a celebrity on Twitter? Well, there is Rachel Maddow, and Roger Ebert, and then there are a bunch of real-life celebrities that I don't follow because they don't say anything meaningful to me. I have my local celebrities. I think Shoq and Karoli and GottaLaff and OTOOLEFAN and whisper1111 and cynthiaboaz are pretty cool. If you want to see who KO is following, go to this link: http://twitter.com/KeithOlbermann/following. You won't find me there, but I am going to send him a link to this post, just in case.

Someone has to be the Mom

We are like a bunch of kids when we get together on Twitter! Everyone hollering, "look at me! look at me!" And then one of us holds up a bright shiny object and a cluster forms, each grabbing at it and adding our own squeals of delight. Sometimes we are like teenagers, sarcasm and irony dripping from our hoodies. Other times we are five-year-olds, giggling over the poop jokes and holding our noses when the poop is real.

Problem is, someone has to be the Mom. Mom has to make sure the stove is turned off and the china is put away. Mom has to pull us apart when we are scuffling and tell us to shush when we get too loud. Mom has to wash our hands when they are dirty and put bandages on our scraped knees. Mom has to be the grownup so the rest can have fun.

I get tired of being the Mom. So do a few other Moms on Twitter. Sometimes we want to laugh with you but we don't want the jokes to be mean. And we want to be critical without having to throw water balloons. Once in a while we want to be grownups having a serious conversation and other times we want to be kids, too. Just saying.