Twitter User:
@ysplotchy
Tweet:
Idea: Spinoff of sadtrombone website. http://www.sadpiano.com/ - plays 1st movement of Chopin's Moonlight Sonata http://bit.ly/YLBa2
(link to original tweet)
Overexplanation:
It has been a while since of one of my brilliant tweets wasn't favorited or retweeted by at least one person. Oh, don't worry. My tweets are still being underappreciated, and most likely will be until the time I reverse the aging process and start starring in photoshoots in Tiger Beat.
This might sound strange, but I was quite happy to see this particular tweet not favorited or retweeted, because I thought my idea was funny enough that I would enjoy overexplaining it.
There's a website called http://www.sadtrombone.com/ which consists of... well, just go to the damn website and listen to the sound yourself. It's a clever website, in that it just does one thing -- just a "wahhh-wahh-wahh" sound effect.
The language for online interaction has acquired lots of interesting widgets/abbreviations/symbols, a shorthand for communicating. It's very vibrant, and constantly changing.
You might see someone link to the Sad Trombone site, or simply type [sadtrombone] in plain text to imply the sound effect. Sad Trombone can connote a lot of different things. I will not attempt to unpack the nuances of it here, but trust me, it's a very fluid signifier. Did I just say "very fluid signifier"? Jeez, someone kick me in the balls, please.
Okay, so basically, Sad Trombone is a very quick way of conveying a potentially complicated emotion/feeling.
Let's talk about the genius of my tweet. FINALLY.
My idea for Sad Piano is not a web page linking to a three second sound bite, but to the entire First movement of Frédéric Chopin's Moonlight Sonata. It's a solemn, mid-tempo song, clocking in at around six minutes.
I love the idea that in the incredibly quick back-and-forth of online communication, a link to Sad Piano will ostensibly slooooow down one's movement in the online space while he or she is obliged to listen to the Chopin piece in its entirety.
Similarly, imagine seeing "[sadpiano]" at the end of someone's comment. The reader then must imagine the Chopin piece in real time before he or she can progress onto anything else.
This whole Sad Piano thing reminds of a joke Louis C.K. told in his recent stand-up concert film, Hilarious. He said he wished that people who make the "jerk-off" hand gesture are forced to continue it until they "finish". He then proceeded to demonstrate this.
Anyways, I probably didn't word my tweet well enough to convey all of the above. There was probably a better way of putting it. But I liked my idea and I had a very pleasant time overexplaining it to you.
So thank you!
P.S. The website SadPiano.com does not actually exist -- another potential reason why people did not recognize the tweet's genius.
Sad Piano :-(
5 comments:
I've lurked your blog for years and used to follow you on Twitter before whatever meltdown you had that made you delete your old account. I'm not following your new account because I have had it with people and their egos getting pissed that they don't get enough love, deleting their accounts, then coming back and expecting everyone to just pick up where they left off. I would have thought you to be above that shit, Splotch. Please don't take this the wrong way, but you've become a bit of a whiner. Just because nobody favorites or retweets something doesn't mean they don't appreciate it or get it? Insecure much? Oh, of course you are going to give some long explanation as to why you are not actually insecure, I'm sure, because that's what insecure people do. I'm not hating on you, I actually like you, just saying that you have developed a very unflattering personality trait.
I'd like the old Splotchy back, please. The one that was fun, funny, and not so impressed with how clever he is. Thank you.
Wow, thanks for this. Genuinely. Thank you.
I won't explain why I'm not insecure. I am TOTALLY insecure.
I have always been this way. What you (correctly) point out as an unflattering personality trait has always been there, just perhaps not as visible.
I'll do my best to be a good person, and not let my insecurities overwhelm me. It's hard, but it's worth trying.
Anyways, thanks.
Splotch, I never doubted your insecurity. Welcome back.
Never understood the twitter thing. When e-mail came along I thought it would revive the letter form and restore written exchanges to a pre-television density. Then AOL introduced chat rooms on dial-up and it looked like interpersonal communication would be reduced to a series of one liners.
Cuffs go in and out of fashion. The mode now is off the cuff comments. Your blog is more of a flare leg, generous in its fabric, modest in its cut.
Filtering your moods and personal changes out of your schtick wouldn't be doing your best.
Write whatever the hell you want.
I was going to make a bell bottom pun too, but I can't think of one that isn't forced.
Wow, I haven't been reading your blog (or anyone else's) for a while because at one point I couldn't keep up with everyone any more so I just stopped altogether. Now I'm trying to pick up the writing again (gradually.)
But, since I have not read your blog for a long time I know naught of this whininess to which Pixie so harshly refers. Pixie has only a profile and no blog --- which leads me to believe that Pixie must be your wife! Or someone close to you who wants to tell you to knock it off with the whining. Brilliant!
Oh, and for the record, I refuse ever to open a Twitter account. Between Blogger, FB and email I am saturated in the e-market. But thanks for playing.
Thanks, Bill. I am happy to have and be a flare leg.
CP, it's good to see you! After I gave my heartfelt thanks to Pixie, I noticed that he/she/it might very well have created their Blogger profile solely to give me the whatfor. I still think what they said was something I needed to hear, but I later had an urge to add another comment saying, "Fuck you, you chickenshit motherfucker for criticizing me from the cloak of anonymity." But I didn't! :-)
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