"Back in my day, only birds Tweeted, and Facebook was an actual book of faces of college people."--Imaginary Old Dude

I finally feel like I found my stride in how to use Twitter. Or rather, I've finally begunto understand how to use Twitter to get the info I care about, and to get plugged into the communities and conversations that are important to me. Irony of ironies that it's taken me this long, as I wouldn't have this current blogging position if it weren't for a friend spotting the initial call for bloggers on HIS twitterfeed.

Avenue Q's got it all wrong: The internet is NOT (just) for porn.

I consider myself a pretty tech savvy guy. I'm (fairly) young, pretty geeky, and have been a closeted computer gamer nerd most my life. In middle school, my best friends weren't the ones trying for the football team--they were the ones building their own computers from parts they ordered online. I had a Myspace when it was cool, hopped on the Facebook bandwagon pretty early, had Gmail when it was by "invite only", and played around with Google+ before Facebook ripped off all the best features from Google and then added Timeline for good measure. (I also get like 85% of the jokes on xkcd, which clearly makes me pretty nerd-tech-savvy.)

But you know something? I am pretty burned out from all this social media-ing.

I know! Can you believe it? A kid of the internet generation complaining there's too much internet. But there it is. If I get another LinkedIn invite (which inevitably spawns 2-3 follow-up email spams "reminding me about the invite"), I think I might murder someone (namely all those friends on LinkedIn). So many hours of my life is getting sucked into the maw of endless staring at screens, looking at videos of cats and pictures of my friends' babies (which, to be fair, is pretty amazingly adorable and awesome).

But the simple fact remains: for all the people (like me) who complain about the Digital Apocalypse and how the internet is ruining books and human interaction and Real Life Connections and Empathy (TM), the internet is undeniably important in so many ways. In relation to just theater (see, this blog isn't just an off-topic rant!), it offers a way for geographically dispersed communities of playwrights and artists to connect, interact, share ideas, and receive almost instantaneous feedback.

In the spirit of "trying to learn Twitter", I found out this week there's a cool new hashtag that's being used--#ShareaScene, where playwrights can do just that--share a scene they have written. The idea is directors and actors can read it and follow up if they're interested, or playwrights can seek responses and feedback if they desire. That is pretty awesome.

And so there it is. The big conundrum. Nowadays, we NEED to have a Twitter handle. We NEED a YouTube Channel. We NEED to have a Facebook page to connect with fans (aka Mom and the 20ish kind friends who liked my actor page when I spammed them). We NEED a TheatreFace account. (Hee) We NEED a web page, cleanly designed, preferably not a weebly (or, heaven forbid, geocities). We need to engage with communities, keep up on theater news so we know to act just as outraged about the Guthrie's season as every other theater artist out there is. (But really. You should be fairly outraged.)

But with all this tweeting and uploading and sharing... when do we have time to rehearse and read and hone our craft?

[Oh. Tumblr. I still don't know how Tumblr really works and why it's important/better. Boo.]