I Am Not Twitter Famous

My Twitter drafts folder is the same tweet, reformatted five times. The same joke, delivered poorly, five unique times. There are no spelling errors, and the grammar meets the standards of the colloquialisms we have all come to understand in our internet parallel universe.

Language is a living entity; it lives and breathes and evolves and ages and contracts diseases and grows malignant tumors that metastasize into entire systems that harm its speakers and its own lifespan. And language dies. We do not attend its funeral, we hold no memorial, but its memory is honored through its legacy. Language begets language: in the same way that Latin’s progeny has become the collective Romance languages, we honor what once were widely spoken and common tongues with our words today.

We may follow this same line of reasoning in regard to what we call “good writing:” what once were fast-held beliefs about the rules of writing are rapidly evolving with language and society at large. The internet has the beautiful and terrifying ability to progress society at breakneck speed. We are able to watch the advancement of language and writing within a generation, where once we might not have seen significant change for a century or more.

What has not changed is the act and purpose of writing itself. Good writing is the ability to communicate using the words raised by our ancestors, whose growth we continue to foster. Good writing can convey sentiment or meaning - using whatever words we have at our disposal (and in this way we may refer to our literary children as tools) - from one person to another. Good writing is being able to touch another human or group of humans with one’s words, regardless of the skill with which they are forged together.

I am still having trouble landing on the right format for my Tweet. Maybe I’ll scrap it to make room for a better joke.