April 14, 2011
“Dear readers, I have a confession.
Quite recently for reasons that escape me, I succumbed to the hot, trending, global madness of tweeting with Charlie Sheen.
I joined the ranks of 3,569,518 followers of Charlie Sheen, the number of followers at the time I joined. However, that total grows expeditiously.
For awhile, yes I resisted, but eventually the #sheenious won me over, #Duh,winning.
Perhaps, @Mozarkite (moi) joined out of curiosity, I don't know. One thing is for certain, Sheens's tweets are entertaining, edgy and never boring.
By Twitter standards, Sheen has tweeted, as of this writing, a measly 203 times, peanuts in the Twitter world.
He follows only 42 people, and I am not among them.
Twitter tells me that I know eight people who also follow Charlie Sheen. However, I am not exactly sure why I know @lostremote or @ShakespeareGeek, but never mind that.
The point is, no one can keep up with Charlie Sheen's shennigans, let alone his number of followers.
It's mind boggling.
No, it's madness.
In fact, just about everything about Charlie Sheen is maddening, even fun, and at the very least surprising.
Thus, imagine my surprise when I clicked on the @charliesheen button and found that we do in fact follow one person in common: @FloydMayweather.
Problem is I don't know who Floyd Mayweather is, and why I follow him. When did I do that, I wonder.
Naturally, I immediately searched the web and found out that he is ranked as, #Duh, winning, the number one Welterweight boxer by many boxing publications. Yes, he is indeed the number one pound-for pound best boxer in the world.
And I don't know him, but we both follow the #sheenious.
It is fair for you to wonder, when will this madness end?
I wonder that, too, but the answer is, not anytime soon.
A Time.com blog notes that "Charlie Sheen, not merely content with taking up more news cycle time than could ever be deemed necessary, is now seeking to trademark 22 of his catchphrases. Don't we all have enough to be getting on with for Sheen to be concerned with this? And how the heck did he get to 22 without us noticing?"
Sheen is already selling T-shirts and other merchandise highlighting some of his trending catchphrases that are making their way into the English language, whether we like it or not.
A reporter for PCmag.com writes: "Whether you think actor Charlie Sheen's recent behavior is...sad, highly entertaining, or hilarious, one thing is for sure - he has made quite the impression on the Twitterverse."
In "Twitterverse", these phrases are preceded by a hashtag symbol (#). If you use a hashtag before a word it shows those tweets more easily in a Twitter search and also shows you similar tweets on the same topic.
When a hashtag word becomes popular, it often is listed on Twitter as a Trending Topic.
And thus, many people now use in their common vernacular:
#winning and #Duh,winning-- to generally express something you've done that might be considered winning.
#TigerBlood-- if you have something to tweet that requires the extra punch.
And #Buh-Bye--when you need to end a conversation.
On more thing before I say #Buh-Bye, Miley Cyrus rejoined Twitter this week after a year-and-a-half absence. Here is why, according to CNN.com, "I'm not gonna lie. I came back to twitter for 2 reasons. My fans and to follow @charliesheen #winning."
#TigerBlood.