Dog Twitter
Shall I tell you about my new enterprise? I'll tell you. I have invented a social media website for literate dogs like my hairy self. I am not the only dog capable of dextrously applying his paws to a laptop keyboard to create blogs like this for your entertainment. There are countless other clever dogs out there who are capable of doing so. Not some breeds, obviously. Some breeds are as thick as poo. But for those who aren't, I have launched a doggy version of Twitter, which I have called WOOFER and it already has thousands of users.
If you are familiar with Twitter, then you will appreciate the following description of how Woofer is being used. I have modelled it on the main features of Twitter in terms of posting Woofs, following other Woofers, Re-woofing Woofs and 'liking' other Woofs (though I have used the word LICK instead of LIKE so you actually Lick other Woofs.)
Doggy users can add a brief bio. As you'd imagine, most of these run along similar lines. You know, like, 'I'm passionate about walking, barking, sniffing arses and shitting in the street.' Or 'All opinions are my own.' Which is bollocks really, because even on Twitter, everyone's opinion is just a rehash of other opinions they've read.
Much like Twitter, these so-called opinions do tend to lack nuance, context, balance or any sense of rational thought or reasonableness. For example, someone re-woofed a statement from a celeb (who shall remain anonymous, as I do not want to encourage further trolling of the poor bastard) who stated that he "is not keen on brown dogs." You should have seen the response. Half of Woofer were calling him a Nazi, racist, 1950s throwback, fascist, browndogophobe, etc.... and demanded that he is sacked from his job presenting a daytime TV show for simpletons. The other half of Woofer came out in support about free speech, calling it a matter of taste and not colour, pointing out that dogs are categorised by breed and not races and therefore brown dogs are a diverse group who happen to have the same colour hair. Then the debate (I say 'debate' but it was just a hurling of oversimplified, overly sensitive, mawkishly virtuous, decontextualized, self-righteous soundbite judgments.... or, in a nutshell, a load of bollocks) then moved on to hair colour prejudice and people claiming that you could (or couldn't) say that about (e.g.) ginger dogs. It was all very polarising and not really what I set up the Woofer site for. But there you go.
When people aren't woofing their ill-informed indignation about something or other, they tend to stick to the mundane. Not just because us dogs live mundane lives, but because it's a natural way to seek attention and relieve boredom. Humans do it. The difference is that on Facebook, when someone posts something mundane, like a photo of their dinner or the fact that they are wearing crocs that day or they just ran out of toilet paper mid-poo, their friends and family care enough to humour them with a 'Like'. Given that Twitter is for people who want to avoid their friends and family (or who have neither), when they tweet something boring, then the effect is to just bore everyone else, because everyone else doesn't really know them and as such doesn't really give a shit about their dinner, their crocs or their lavatorial crises.
Another way in which Woofer is reflecting human behaviour on Twitter, is when dogs who think they are incredibly good looking keep posting pictures of themselves in sexy poses, asking their followers, "What are you thinking?" The common response is, "I want to sniff your bum". Other attention-seeking Woofers - ugly ones usually, who don't want to put loads of photos of themselves on Woofer - will elicit responses (Licks and Re-woofs) by posting controversial and contentious statements. This is easy to do. You just need to think, what do dogs disagree most angrily about? Then you pick a side and start posting Woofs critical of the opposite points of view. You immediately become a social pariah, half the Wooferverse hates you, but they still want to follow you, metaphorically sniff your bum and accentuate your public profile by angrily Woofing back at you. You gain more followers, become an influential voice and start getting paid to write articles for the Mail, the Sun, the Guardian or the Huffington post, depending on which side in the debate you have aligned your self with.
I guess that on reflection, maybe I shouldn't have invented Woofer. Shit. It's got like the end of Orwell's 'Animal Farm' with all the pigs turning into humans. Us dogs should be above all this nonsense and leave it to the humans to fling bile at each other online. Yep, that's decided it for me, now that I've thought about it some more... I'm closing Woofer. Let's just get back to barking at each other or wagging at each other in the street, in parks and in the countryside; and leave the shit-flinging to humans, the same way we leave it to them to pick it up for us in the first place.
If you are familiar with Twitter, then you will appreciate the following description of how Woofer is being used. I have modelled it on the main features of Twitter in terms of posting Woofs, following other Woofers, Re-woofing Woofs and 'liking' other Woofs (though I have used the word LICK instead of LIKE so you actually Lick other Woofs.)
Doggy users can add a brief bio. As you'd imagine, most of these run along similar lines. You know, like, 'I'm passionate about walking, barking, sniffing arses and shitting in the street.' Or 'All opinions are my own.' Which is bollocks really, because even on Twitter, everyone's opinion is just a rehash of other opinions they've read.
Much like Twitter, these so-called opinions do tend to lack nuance, context, balance or any sense of rational thought or reasonableness. For example, someone re-woofed a statement from a celeb (who shall remain anonymous, as I do not want to encourage further trolling of the poor bastard) who stated that he "is not keen on brown dogs." You should have seen the response. Half of Woofer were calling him a Nazi, racist, 1950s throwback, fascist, browndogophobe, etc.... and demanded that he is sacked from his job presenting a daytime TV show for simpletons. The other half of Woofer came out in support about free speech, calling it a matter of taste and not colour, pointing out that dogs are categorised by breed and not races and therefore brown dogs are a diverse group who happen to have the same colour hair. Then the debate (I say 'debate' but it was just a hurling of oversimplified, overly sensitive, mawkishly virtuous, decontextualized, self-righteous soundbite judgments.... or, in a nutshell, a load of bollocks) then moved on to hair colour prejudice and people claiming that you could (or couldn't) say that about (e.g.) ginger dogs. It was all very polarising and not really what I set up the Woofer site for. But there you go.
When people aren't woofing their ill-informed indignation about something or other, they tend to stick to the mundane. Not just because us dogs live mundane lives, but because it's a natural way to seek attention and relieve boredom. Humans do it. The difference is that on Facebook, when someone posts something mundane, like a photo of their dinner or the fact that they are wearing crocs that day or they just ran out of toilet paper mid-poo, their friends and family care enough to humour them with a 'Like'. Given that Twitter is for people who want to avoid their friends and family (or who have neither), when they tweet something boring, then the effect is to just bore everyone else, because everyone else doesn't really know them and as such doesn't really give a shit about their dinner, their crocs or their lavatorial crises.
Another way in which Woofer is reflecting human behaviour on Twitter, is when dogs who think they are incredibly good looking keep posting pictures of themselves in sexy poses, asking their followers, "What are you thinking?" The common response is, "I want to sniff your bum". Other attention-seeking Woofers - ugly ones usually, who don't want to put loads of photos of themselves on Woofer - will elicit responses (Licks and Re-woofs) by posting controversial and contentious statements. This is easy to do. You just need to think, what do dogs disagree most angrily about? Then you pick a side and start posting Woofs critical of the opposite points of view. You immediately become a social pariah, half the Wooferverse hates you, but they still want to follow you, metaphorically sniff your bum and accentuate your public profile by angrily Woofing back at you. You gain more followers, become an influential voice and start getting paid to write articles for the Mail, the Sun, the Guardian or the Huffington post, depending on which side in the debate you have aligned your self with.
I guess that on reflection, maybe I shouldn't have invented Woofer. Shit. It's got like the end of Orwell's 'Animal Farm' with all the pigs turning into humans. Us dogs should be above all this nonsense and leave it to the humans to fling bile at each other online. Yep, that's decided it for me, now that I've thought about it some more... I'm closing Woofer. Let's just get back to barking at each other or wagging at each other in the street, in parks and in the countryside; and leave the shit-flinging to humans, the same way we leave it to them to pick it up for us in the first place.
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