Twitter power: Activate

I am not what you consider a Luddite by any stretch of the imagination. I built a computer once. I remember being one of the first people to abandon the home phone for cell phones. I am typing on an IPad - in my Blogger app -for my blog. I have had a personal art website for several years.

www.BrandonCSmith.com - Pulling Cows

Social media, however, has been a distant and uninteresting technological outpost for me. I started a Facebook account but found it exhausting. I have regarded Twitter as having little or no value for me personally as I did not understand any of it and honestly had a bad attitude about it.  But recently, under pressure to create a twitter account from a friend,  I set up an account.   I spent  a fair amount of time wading through the hash tags and @'s, the 70 word run on sentences and the overwhelming banality that I seemed to encounter.

My chosen Twitter photo.  Its magic.

At some point however, I began to realize the power of inserting oneself in the cultural stream of consciousness by simply putting a # in front of a word that other people are also putting a hash tag in front of.  Instantly a conversation emerges around a common interest.  Don't get me wrong, it is still to a large degree statements like "I went to #McDonalds for a #cheeseburger and it was #delicious.  #yum."   #whoonearthcouldpossiblycareaboutyourtriptomcdonaldstoeachacheeseburger?

The point is though, it can be the day to day trivialities and that's fine, but it doesn't have to be.  This was, finally my understanding as it relates to social media, or at least Twitter.  So I have begun an art twitter account to promote upcoming shows, to retweet other peoples shows and perhaps point out every time I go to McDonalds - who knows.  Next step: figure out how to link twitter to this blog.

My twitter account is: @brandonsmithart