So earlier today I popped over to an old chat area called sportsjournalists.com. The place used to be a regular spot for industry gossip and information, but over the past few years it’s turned into a bit of a ghost town. That’s not an insult or anything—just sorta the plight of chat rooms in 2016.
Anyhow, there was a thread related to my ultimately doomed SportsByBrooks piece, and it included this take concerning my Twitter presence …
Pearlman is a perfect example of a journalist whose Twitter profile/persona does him zero favors.
I thought about this quite a bit. Actually, I’ve thought about this for a long time. And, well, the person is right. My Twitter profile/persona does me no favors. None. Zero. As a guy who sits and writes/reports books most days, I’m always in front of a screen with Twitter open. If something crosses my mind, I Tweet it. If I see something gross, I describe it. If Donald Trump drives me to drink, I explode. I am, in short, brutally bad at this whole Twitter thing, where you’re supposed to stay in your lane and Tweet only about, say, sports or books or whatnot. Too often I come off as an intolerant asshole. Probably because, politically, I am an intolerant asshole.
But—and here’s the big but—so what? It is what it is. I love expressing myself; unloading. If someone gets mad because I block him? Big shit. If I lose a few potential sales with an anti-Trump diatribe? Meh, it’s OK. At day’s end, it’s all just a game. It’s a pretend world of virtual nonsense.
Twitter is Twitter.
I’ll live.
Is there anything of less importance that results in more consternation than Twitter and tweets?
Yes, what is written on sportsjournalists.com.
It has turned into a bunch of old men screaming at kids to get off their lawn.
Journalism has changed and they refuse to adapt.