June 18, 2009: A text message from Barbara!

She is on a plane bound for LA sitting behind Lindsay Lohan.

“…very sweet…wanted to hug her. Maternal instinct.”

Barbara is her real name. I don’t have to change her name to protect her identity or preserve her privacy, which is surprising given that Barbara is THE Barbara Walters. No, we’re not friends, although I wouldn’t object to the notion.

My messages from Barbara are known in the world of information networking as “tweets” - text-based messages of up to 140 characters. Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you probably already know about and have an opinion of Twitter, Tweeting, Tweets, Tweeps, and the other related bastardized word forms that have rapidly proliferated through our increasingly cluttered cyberspace. Remember when twitter simply referred to a noise made by a bird?

I first came across Twitter in 2008 when it was described in some hipster magazine as the next Big Thing. At the time, I was getting painfully acquainted with Facebook, the then current Big Thing. I must admit, I got caught up in my personal world of “Where are they now?”, but the novelty quickly wore off leaving me with little more than an empty status update box. Even now, I rarely post updates; my average life doesn’t provide me with the fodder. Sometimes it seems like the status update box is mocking me with its “What are you doing now?” prompt – as if a testament to my ordinary life. I want to yell: “Staring at a box on a computer screen!” That my friends’ lives are any more exciting than my own is questionable. “Waiting for the rain to stop,” was a recent update from my friend Kelly.

Twitter exists for the purpose of status updates – from anywhere, at anytime. Given my reluctance to post updates on Facebook, this added convenience is lost on me.

My life as a series of tweets would go something like this:

“Picking up the dry cleaning”

“Swooning over a yummy pair of shoes I can’t afford”

“Making rhubarb scones”

“Drinking a Manhattan on the porch”

“Watching Top Chef”

My life is good, but it’s hardly newsworthy. I’ve never bumped into anyone famous on an airplane. Come to think of it, I’ve never bumped into anyone famous anywhere.

Last winter I scoffed to my husband that only egomaniacs would find a service like Twitter appealing, but by January 2009 Twitter seemed ubiquitous. Everyone, everywhere was talking about tweeting. It was the subject of daily debate on The View. To tweet or not to tweet? Whoopi and Barbara did not tweet. Joy was just getting started. Sherri and Elisabeth actively tweeted and admitted to an infatuation bordering on addiction.

And then IT happened.

It was a usual day on The View - the women all talking at once in a desperate fight for airspace - when Barbara announced she had set up a Twitter account. I was stunned. While I had always admired Barbara’s humility and her compassionate, yet hard-driving reporting style, she certainly didn’t fit my image of the egocentric Tweeter. Suddenly I had that sinking, uncool feeling that reminded me of high school days when my mom insisted on picking my outfits. Within the hour I had created my own Twitter account.

Unsure of what my next step should be, I called my friend Emily, my personal technology advocate, for counsel. Emily was always a step ahead of most people and several ahead of me when it came to mobile communication. Emily was my first instant message, my first text and my reason for joining Facebook. To my surprise, Emily wasn’t convinced Twitter had staying power: “If it’s that good why hasn’t Google bought it?” She had a point. Nevertheless, she was a subscriber – perhaps, like me, Emily had a niggling fear of being left behind.

“How often do you post updates?” I asked. 

“Almost never; I just use it to follow people that interest me.”

“Like who?”

“Al Gore is my current favorite,” she said.

“You’re following Al Gore? And he’s okay with that?”

It was obvious I had a lot to learn about Twitter. I returned to my computer and logged in to my new account. First, I checked all the privacy settings I could find. (I learned this essential first step a few years back when my boss found my karaoke Christmas photos on Flickr through a Google search.) Once I had battened down the hatches, I looked for people I knew. Twitter found several matches in my contacts, including Emily, but I wasn’t ready to commit.

Then I searched for my muse: Barbara Walters. There were ten listings; fortunately the photos made it easy to find my Barbara. She was following only three people – her tweeting View co-hosts, but she had over 300,000 followers! And I could be one of them with the simple click of a button. What about her privacy? In an age when the paparazzi go to extremes to exploit the famous and satiate our seemingly endless need for celebrity gossip, I expected icons like Barbara would take every available precaution to maintain privacy. Yet, before my eyes were Barbara’s latest tweets including, “Getting shampooed. Thank you for being tweet to me.” Her tweets were no more fascinating than the ones I had imagined of my own, yet they were inherently more interesting because, well, because she’s Barbara Walters. I decided to follow her. With so many followers she wouldn’t notice one more.

That was six months ago. Now, Barbara is cooing over Lindsay Lohan (That tweet in particular has forced me to consider “unfollowing” her.). And I still haven’t posted a single tweet. Like Emily, I use Twitter to quietly follow famous people. I’m not interested in the latest gossip. My favorite celebrity tweets lack the shock factor headlines are made of. They have an organic, stream of consciousness feel about them – these tiny threads creating the fabric of their everyday life, which at times doesn’t appear to be much different from my own. The result is that these larger than life people seem small, real, and almost accessible. Only sometimes does it feel a bit like stalking.

I’ve been following Al Gore for a week secretly hoping he might let down his perfect earth steward façade and tweet something naughty like, “Caught at the grocery store without my own bags! Paper or plastic?” Alas, Al’s tweets are environmentally sensitive and insightful and a wee bit boring. I wonder if he has a staff member tweet on his behalf. Now that’s a job worth considering - ghost tweeter to the rich and famous.