Twitter

 First thing, take everything I say with a grain of salt, but remember, I'm probably a lot like you.
     

     Twitter, essentially exercised through witty one liners and quick updates about the location of the next fraternity's "keg on the porch" Cesar Chavez weekend bash.  To be honest, I didn't think I would have time for twitter in the beginning.  A constant obligatory drive to share something sparingly important to the world, simply in the drive to get as many "favorites" (equivalent to likes in normal circumstances) as possible.  But when my older, and definitely more manlier brother raved about how he got "32 favorites on [his] last tweet", I had to get involved.  And apparently, if consistent, that amount is creeping into serious twitter fame territory.  The main point is intertwined with the amount of favorites one can get on a post, and ultimately how many followers one can acquire.  Relate this to modern day protests and even country wide revolutions.      Recently, Ukraine has been on the brink of what some are calling the next Cold War, and others are calling it World War III, with the easily agitated Russia and infamous President Vladimir Putin.  Over the past few months, Pro-Ukranian revolutionaries have been convening on the extremely popular Ukraninan social networking site, VKontakte (similar to facebook, for us Americans who know nothing other than the latter...and myspace, for those who can't get over their band's oh so popular myspace page).  On Saturday March 1st, a media organization funded by Russia's federal budget, Russia Today, reported that a leader of a Pro-Ukranian revolutionary group called Pracy Sektor, used VKontakte to call on "Russia's most wanted terrorist Doku Umarov to act against Russia."  This is where my easily applicable words of wisdom come into play.  The reason these Pro-Ukranian groups were able pick up so much steam and gather a rather prominent following, is because they were able to spread their motions and gatherings to a large group of people.  Favorites=people who have seen your post and have also been affected enough by it to press that "favorite button."  

     I am now a Pro-Ukranian revolutionist, a modern day minute-man battling for my nationalist pride and my separation from a radical organization I did not want to be a part of in the first place.  I tweet about a protest in the square in Kiev at noon, boom, 30 favorites.  I alone have been able to essentially spread the word to 30 people, and whether all of them attend or not, those are 30 people who now have the information.  And imagine how many people have a twitter, or the Ukranian equivalent.    

     I am now a small-business owner, trying to bring fresh customers to my sandwich shop.  I am an entrepeneur solely trying to spread the word of my new original sandwich, swathed in my recently concocted special sauce.  I tweet about a deal I am having on the sandwich with a bag of chips and a medium drink for $7.50, boom, 45 favorites.  

     At this point I think it is pretty simply to grasp the picture.  All social networking sites have the same principle of being able to post activity, gatherings, or even sandwich deals and succeeded by the immediate attention of "x" amount of fellow tweeters.  And just for everyone to know, twitter drama is a blast, so take part and join the #revolution.