Twitter Protocol

Read before re-tweeting.

I smiled the first time I saw that message. Love the tweet? No problem. Click the little heart. Re-Tweet? Stop right there. The system suggests that I should read the news item first.

It makes sense. How can I share something based on headlines, which might be misleading? Fine, but who has the time for reading? That’s the problem.

We don’t want to admit it, but reading’s expiry date is almost here. We postpone the inevitable by posting the good news, that we finished the first draft or pose with the copy of the book, but how many people will read it? It’s not personal, far from it.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has daily briefings about COVID-19, but we don’t have time to read about something that has turned our life upside down, killed millions.

Fiction and non fiction used to be the preserve of a certain class whose members were encouraged to write, “Darling, your dinner parties are absolutely divine. Have you ever considered writing a cookbook? We could publish it, and even shoot a photo-spread of your summer cottage.”

Past tense. That lifestyle is on Instagram now where celebrities showcase their homes and islands. Publishers that are still hobbling along are gunning for social media page views, and not fourth cousins of the King of Sweden.

The internet removed picket fences and more people are writing online magazines, novels or autobiographies through e-books. Ironically, we don’t read anymore because of that abundance, internet abundance.

So many fruit and vegetables out there in the form of videos, podcasts, music videos, make-up perfect men and women in beautiful clothes or none, charismatic pastors and other stuff more ‘exciting’ that reading.

Have that in mind as you contemplate your first book. And, don’t forget, read before you re-tweet.

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.