Let’s hope it was a joke

LITTLE ROCK — For those who don’t tweet, or twitter, or twit, or tweeze, or whatever it’s called, you might not have heard the news. We wouldn’t if it hadn’t made news. And being in the news business, we read all about it: Twitter went down Thursday for a few hours.

We have a vague notion what Twitter is. You have so many letters to use to say something to your “followers,” or something to that effect. It sounds a lot like giving everybody who wants one a column in the paper, with no deadlines and a point-five inch count. But it’s popular. And this wouldn’t be the first time we didn’t get something that was popular, what with the prevalence of reality TV, pineapple on pizza and new, expensive blue jeans with holes already in them.

So the Twitter world or website or email or whatever went off-line Thursday. The world didn’t end, but you wouldn’t have known it from what folks were saying about it. One panicked user said, and we quote, “My life has no meaning anymore.”

Another: “Twitter is down and my life is over.”

We hope those folks intended their comments as a joke. Surely it couldn’t be otherwise. Right?

If that’s not the case, and life for these people is really linked that much with Twitter—as life is for some teenage Facebook followers we could name—then allow us to make a suggestion:

A good book. In the air-conditioning. Preferably something set in the time before computers. We suggest Wuthering Heights by Miss Bronte. That is, Emily. (There was more than one writer Miss Bronte in that family.) Then take a walk around the block with a dog at your feet. Then dinner with the family.

Twitter as the meaning of life?

Yes, we’re just going to assume that was meant as a joke. And head back to the library. Fido get your leash and Ma, heat up the leftovers.