Putting Twitter in Context

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TwitterLike it or not, Twitter is becoming more and more integrated into all of our lives. From twelve year old girls to major mainstream news corporations, it seems like Twitter is everywhere and that Twitter users are riding the wave of the future. This can be extremely frustrating for people who just don’t “get” Twitter. Maybe they’ve created a Twitter account, just to see what all the hype was about, and did not get any farther than that. Maybe they have been resistant to Twitter since its inception, and have never taken the time to give it a chance. But when tweets are now being archived by the Library of Congress, it’s really time to start paying attention and realizing what this whole Twitter thing is all about.

A Brief Explanation of Twitter

In short, Twitter is a form of blogging known as a “microblogging.” It allows users to share their thoughts and feelings with the rest of the world, but restricts these posts to 140 characters or less (thus the prefix micro-). Originally designed as a sort of text message mass communication tool, it has since evolved into so much more.

The power of Twitter comes not from the website itself, per say, but through the vast number of ways to utilize the system and the large number of complimentary services Twitter can interact with. Updating Twitter is now available via the web, text message, and through numerous desktop and mobile applications. There are services that allow you to attach images or video to your Twitter posts, shorten URLs to fit into the 140 character limit, and easily view specific key words or browse global topics. The entire Twitter experience can be altered depending on the application in which you choose to interact with Twitter.

If you don’t have a correct context with which to understand Twitter, it’s easy to get lost in the misconceptions. I still hear comments such as:

“I don’t want people knowing what I’m doing all the time!”
“Why would I want to hear that so-and-so eating a sandwich?”
“Twitter is the exact same thing as Facebook, but with less functions.”

And you know what? All of the above statements have the potential to be true depending on how you use Twitter. It’s that versatile. If you write about every little thing you do, people will know what you’re doing all the time. If you follow people who tweet about every meal they eat, you’ll be reading a lot of sandwich reviews. And it’s actually quite easy to view Twitter as a simple status update engine and nothing more. But I would argue that you’re completely missing the point.

First of all, we need stop looking at Twitter as a social networking platform. Which can be hard to do, since that’s exactly what it is, a social networking platform. But Twitter is a different form of Social Networking, one in which we haven’t seen before (which is exactly why its popularity has grown exponentially over the past two years). When people think of social networking, websites such as Facebook and Myspace come to mind. These websites involve creating a web page using numerous tools (pictures, status updates, lists of interests, games, what-have-you) and then interacting with other people and their individual web pages.

Twitter is completely unique in the aspect that it does not revolve around a user’s web page at all. In fact, you can have the full Twitter experience without ever visiting Twitter’s website. Twitter is innovative due to the lack of a main centralized main page for each individual user. There is no profile page to spend hours editing and fixing and changing around. There are simply posts. Messages that you send out into the Twitter Universe, and messages from the Twitter Universe you choose to have sent back to you.

Viewing the Internet as an Organic Creation

The Internet itself is a living thing. It grows organically, with both users creating brand new websites and services, and people building off of infrastructures that already exist. Much like the modern evolution of audio recording. WalkmanIf a person wants to listen to music today, they have a wide range of media from which to choose, from vinyl to cassette tape to compact disc. These are all different steps in the evolution of modern audio recording and playback, and most would agree that each new innovation has more pros and less cons than the previous.

The same thing has happened with different services available through the internet. As an example, a Yahoo’s Geocities homepage was one of the first free, popular, and easy to use ways to create your own personal website. Today, Geocities no longer exists, but one could easily argue that this service has evolved into the modern day Blogger or WordPress platform. Another branch of evolution for the Geocities platform could be a Myspace or Facebook page. All of the above are offer different and modern ways to do exactly what Geocities helped so many people to do: easily carve out a small piece of the internet for yourself.

Homo heidelbergensisSo, much in the same way that scientists believe that Homo heidelbergensis branched into both Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis, the internet can branch into different but related services and features. Almost every website we visit is an advanced form of a feature available during the first few years that the internet was publicly available.

In order to understand Twitter, we need to take a look at where it fits in with the evolution of an internet service. Giving Twitter context allows us to understand and appreciate it, even if we have absolutely no need for it’s services. Yes, it is possible that you have absolutely no need for Twitter, even if all your friends are imploring you to join in. Maybe you know in your gut that Twitter is not for you, but you just can’t explain why. Giving Twitter some context will help with that.

Evolution of Twitter

One of the first popular forms of communication within the internet were the Usenet newsgroup forums. It’s very possible, if you were active in the online community when the Internet was starting to become mainstream, you were an frequent poster in an alt.interesting-topic group. These different forums were broke into different topics, and allowed a user to either post a message or respond to a message. Newsgroup forums were located completely outside of what we would now consider a web browser and was a complimentary service offered to those with an Internet connection and a separate newsgroup reader application.

Next, and even more popular, was the chat room. While available in many different forms, it was first to the mainstream public by American Online (AOL). There was a seemingly limitless list of chat rooms topics to choose from and someone was always online ready to chat. This live communication, a feature not available through Usenet newsgroups, was an evolutionary step for this service.

These chat rooms branched into a more focused Instant Message service, such as AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk and numerous other platforms. Many of these services offered group chat rooms, but the focus was instead focused on one to one chat rather than a virtual room full of people talking.

This is where the group chat room took an evolutionary pause. There were no major changes made to the chat room platform, and many group chat room regulars abandoned these rooms for newer and different services, such as Instant Messenger programs, Friendster, Myspace, and eventually Facebook. Most people totally forgot about the chat room.

This this is where Twitter comes in. Twitter is the old fashioned chat room, redesigned for the modern day Web 2.0. As soon as you realize that Twitter is basically an evolved form of the once popular chat room, it makes a lot more sense. But Twitter is so much more than the simple chat rooms from back yonder, because the options for customization are almost limitless.

Joining the World’s Biggest Chat Room

Global ChatYou can begin your journey into Twitter by realizing that everyone who has an active Twitter account is already participating in one giant chat room. This chat room is so giant that it would be impossible to interact without narrowing the amount of users down a bit. In essence, when you create a Twitter account, you’re creating a smaller, personalized version of this giant chat room. Every time you follow someone new on Twitter, you’re inviting them into your personal chat room. Every thing they say will appear when you open your Twitter application or sign into your account on the Twitter website. And anyone who chooses to follow you will be able to see everything you say in their customized chat room.

Unlike chat rooms of the past, which had numerous different rooms dedicated to numerous different topics, Twitter itself acts as one giant room, with every single user talking at the same time. When you join Twitter, you don’t immediately get dumped into a real time chat room like those found on AOL. It would be physically impossible to keep up with every single post on Twitter, from over 190 Million users. Instead, Twitter starts you off with a completely empty room (your Twitter feed), and it’s your job to root through all the users on Twitter to find the ones you want to bring into your chat room. These can be friends, celebrities, or even companies. Once you “follow” these Twitter users, their posts will appear in your feed.

The great part of this new and evolved chat room is that you can take it with you where ever you go. You can jump on and see all the messages from everyone you brought into your chat room anywhere, at any time, as long as you have a mobile Twitter application such as Twitter for the iPhone (link opens iTunes). From here, you can easily post, reply, send direct messages, or perform a number of other features. The main point being that Twitter, the giant chat room. is available all the time, any time.

Is Twitter for me?

Only you can answer that question. There’s a distinct possibility that the answer is no. That’s great, and unless all your friends are on Twitter and use it to plan lots of social events, it probably won’t have any major impact on your life at all. In fact, you can even take advantage of Twitter as a stream of global consciousness search engine without even joining. It’s up to you what to do with Twitter.

Once you delve into Twitter, there are a lot of different ways to interact with people, such as @Replies, Direct Messages, Hash Tags, and many more (which I’m not going to detail here). If you are interested in joining the world’s largest chat room, I would recommend getting to know a few of these features (it’s not that hard) or just jumping right in and picking things up as you go along. Twitter is a fun place where you can interact with friends and celebrities, get breaking news stories, and even get regular updates about what people all over the world are talking about at any given moment. But remember, it’s also an extremely appealing procrastination tool, so join in with caution.

Twitter’s versatility has given the service a reputation for being either useless or a simply a tool for people who over share every detail of their lives. And for some people, that’s exactly how Twitter functions. But it would be a shame to miss out on all the positive aspects of Twitter due to simple misconceptions. I really believe that once one actually understands the context of Twitter, they’ll have a much easier time joining the conversation. At the very least, people will not be as opposed to it as they once were.

Or maybe they will. Maybe the only difference is that now they’ll have accurate reasoning to support their opposition to Twitter.

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Things I Love Thursday, August 19th

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This week has been absolutely great. I’ve been keeping busy, writing a lot, hanging out with good people, and just been having a good time. This week also went by super fast. It definitely does NOT feel like a week since I wrote my last TILT post. But it sure has been, so here I am. Without further adieu:

External Hard Drives: I’m totally going to geek out here (as if my last post wasn’t enough techno-babble). I was able to find a 2TB external hard drive for $119 this week. It’s awesome, because I’ve needed another external hard drive for a while, and I was finally able to find one with the right amount of space, at the right price, at a time when I actually had a little bit of extra money (which is rare since I’ve got my budget down so perfectly that there’s rarely any wiggle room). Since I don’t have a TV, I use my laptop (hooked up to a huge external monitor) to watch movies and TV shows. Having this 2TB external hard drive means I can go through my DVD collection and convert them all to digital format and sort them on my hard drive for easy access any time. I can download and store full seasons of my favorite shows (after I purchase physical copies, of course). I haven’t had enough hard drive space to get anything new to watch in a while, and now I do! I’m totally going to turn all two terabytes into entertainment central. It’s going to be AWESOME.

Sit Down Restaurants: These days, it’s rare that I go to any sort of sit down restaurant. I don’t really cook either, so most of my meals consist of cereal, sandwiches from the Deli that I eat while working, and other quick bites that are more convenient than satisfying. I always have some excuse to rush through meals, be it schedule, money, or simply having no one to eat out with. So when I do actually go to a restaurant, it is such a stand out experience. This week, I ended up at not just one restaurant (Uno’s) but two (Artie’s Delicatessen). It’s so great to just be able to sit down and enjoy a good meal without have to worry about getting all the ingredients before hand, following any sort of recipe, or cleaning up afterward. Restaurants always huge so many different options, so I can always find something that I’m in the mood for at that moment. And what’s even better is when you go to a restaurant with a large party of people and at the end everyone tosses their money in for the check and you’re over instead of short. That’s when you know you have good friends.

Long Sleeve Dress Shirt: This week was host to the day (Friday!) where I comfortably wore my first long sleeve shirt of the season! I absolutely love the cold weather, and the fact that it was cool enough to toss on a long sleeve button up shirt, even if it was for only one day, just made me all happy inside. That morning, after checking the weather for the day, I was able to open my closet and choose from a large number of shirts I haven’t worn in half a year. It took me a really long time to choose (I finally went with a short length long sleeve striped shirt from Hugo). It’s the same feeling I get after I go clothing shopping, and I’m so excited to wear each individual item that I just can’t choose. At some point soon, I’ll also be able to toss on one of my sport coats, which also brings me irrational joy.

Middle Eastern Culture: I’ve had two (completely unrelated) brushes with Middle Eastern culture this week, and it always makes me extremely happy. The first was a conversation that was sparked with my friend Cameron after helping a customer who happened to be from Saudi Arabia, close to where Cameron’s sister and brother-in-law live. I took a few Islam classes in college, and it’s always interesting to me to hear what it’s actually like in a Muslim country from the perspective of someone very similar to me. Also, in events completely unrelated, I ended up catching the movie Cairo Time with my friend Diana, which was all about an American visiting and getting used to the culture in Egypt. Both of these events really make me want to travel to that part of the world. Cultural differences have always fascinated me: the way in which human brains can be wired so differently yet still be intrinsically the same. And I’ve always been drawn to Middle Eastern culture for some reason. Now I want Hummus.

Maimy: My male cat is named Maimonides, or Maimy for short. He was a birthday gift, and I share the same birthday at the scholar Maimonides, so choosing his name came pretty naturally. Maimy is an absolutely amazing cat, probably the best that I have ever owned. He’s extremely an affectionate cat; a complete lap cat who loves to be cuddled and loved. He is also an absolute monster who will follow me around at night and wait until I turn around to jump on me and attack. His favorite game to play is being pushed off things and roughly knocked around. I’ll push him off my coffee table and onto my bed, jump on top of him, hold him down, upside down, and shake him, and he’ll love it. As soon as I get up, he’ll jump back on the table and stare at me until I do it again. If I don’t, he’ll just go around my room knocking things off shelves until I attack him once more. The best part about playing with Maimonides is that no matter how worked up he gets he’ll never actually scratch or bite me. Sure, he’ll grab my arms with his arms and legs and put his mouth on my arm when I attack, but he won’t actually put out his claws or bite down hard. He’s totally the type of cat that I could see becoming best friends with a toddler. That kid could totally pick him up and carry him around anywhere, torture the cat, and Maimy would love every minute of it. He’s just that fucking awesome.

The Rest: David Sedaris, getting positive feed back from people you respect, having amazing friends, political discussions with my mom, the iPad (being a geek is awesome), Simplenote and Notational Velocity, snakes as big as world domination, reading about all the amazing things WordPress can do, downloading PDFs, “I’m a Mac, and I jailbreak my iPhone,” Futurama yet again, $7,000 cufflinks, 1Password Pro, Firefox magically working perfectly again, making personal deadlines and sticking to them.

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Evolution of Net Neutrality

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As many of you probably know, there is a big debate going on right now about net neutrality. Most of the articles out there today are of the opinion that the Internet will be dead within 5 years, or that Google is betraying those values they claimed to hold so dear, but is that really the case? I’ll happily jump into a grassroots movement against big bad corporations, but I think it’s important not to get carried away too quickly. It’s so easy to freak out when people don’t actually do their research and know the context of what’s going on (remember the internet kill switch fiasco?) So before we get caught up in the hype and sensationalism, let’s take a look at what’s really going on here.

A Little Background

At the very root of the net neutrality debate is a fear: a fear that Big Bad Corporations are going to take over the internet. These Big Bad Companies will then allow their websites load super fast on your computer, and everyone else will be super slow. As a result, Big Bad Corporation will get more money, since their websites provide faster and more convenient content, while Mr. Joe Startup will fall along the wayside, a victim of less traffic due to a slower website. Or maybe Joe Startup’s website won’t even load for some people.

This fear started to become a a reality in 2008, when Comcast started slowing the traffic of individual ports commonly used by BitTorrent (a program commonly used for illegal file sharing). The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) imposed sanctions against Comcast for favoring sections of the internet over others, thus creating an unfair disadvantage for people using the common BitTorrent ports. Comcast fought back, which they had every right to, since there were no specific laws against throttling internet speeds on certain ports. The case went to court.

The real drama started on April 6th, 2010, when the courts ruled in Comcast’s favor. The ruling effectively stated that the FCC, the government agency set with the task of overseeing the business practices of Internet Service Providers (ISPs), had no right to oversee the business practices of ISPs. No good. So, as of April 6th, 2010, your ISP could block any website or content it wanted, for whatever reason. No wonder people are freaking out.

Google, on the other hand, has long since been a proponent of Net Neutrality and keeping the internet open and equal to everyone. Back in 2006, when a Net Neutrality Bill was entering the House of Representatives, they’ve urged the public to get off their asses and pick up a phone to support the bill. Which, when you think about it, makes perfect business sense for Google. As a company who’s goal is to create a searchable index of the entire internet, it is to their benefit to provide equal access to everything they find. So, while many people appreciate Google’s continued work towards Net Neutrality, Google’s priorities are focused on making money, not necessarily on the consumer. In this particular instance, focusing on the consumer’s rights made them more money, but people are still weary. And rightly so.

Current State of Affairs

Last Monday, Google posted a summary of a policy proposal for an open Internet written by both Google and Verizon (which I will now refer to as Googlezon).  This proposal is meant as an attempt to rebalance the scales after the alarming Comcast court decision, but instead it’s got bloggers all hot and bothered. Hell, I’d even go so far as to say they’re using scare tactics to influence the public, although I can’t quite figure out to what end. Here is io9’s vision of public (read: basic subscription plan) internet is 2016:

The public internet is basically overrun with 4Chan-like social networks that run very slowly and are drenched in advertising and spyware…There’s webmail, though sometimes all your saved messages disappear – for “guaranteed backups” you need to subscribe to the special mail service via Googlezon…It’s an antisocial space, a crumbling, unsupported legacy network, full of ads and graffiti.

That’s some scary shit right there! There must be some horrible in that two page Googlezon proposal. Unfortunately, most of the public will NOT read the two page proposal (dude, it’s two pages) nor will they have the wherewithal to form their own opinions after reading sensational posts like the one on io9. So, let’s try to take an objective view of the proposal and see what all the hype is about.

The Google/Verizon proposal for an open Internet

The first part of the bill discusses Google and Verizon working together to “preserve the open Internet and the vibrant and innovative markets it supports.” Wait, Google and Verizon are working together? When did this start? Google, a supplier and indexer of internet content is now working with an Internet Service Provider. That does seem sort of suspicious. Alright, let’s move on.

Immediately after the brief introduction, Googlezon jumps right into what everyone wants to hear: (legal) web content can NOT be blocked or slowed by an internet service provider, for any reason. Consumers can use any (legal) web application, connect any (legal) web devices to their computers, and basically do any (legal) thing they want, as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else or the internet itself. In addition, ISPs would be beholden to “Transparency” rules, which would require them to truthfully tell their potential and current customers about the offers, benefits, and the details of their specific internet plan “in plain language.” Which basically means you’ll have another “Terms and Conditions” to accept without reading.

Now, here’s where the debate over semantics and the fear mongering starts. Googlezon’s proposal continues, discussing what it calls “additional online services.” These services are only vaguely defined:

Additional online services would have to be distinguishable in scope and purpose from broadband
Internet access service.

This section of the proposal states that if, and only if, an ISP meets the above criteria (not that they’d have a choice), they would be able to offer “additional online services” and these specific services can be prioritized. Uh oh.

Now, there are two ways to interpret this. The first, which is the interpretation taken by most technology blogs, is that Googlezon is going against everything they have ever said in the past and promoting a tiered internet system, much like television, which has basic cable and pay channels. Once this happens, consumers will have to opt in to certain, more expensive packages. You will no longer be able to go to Hulu unless you purchase an expensive TV and Movie package. All your favorite gaming websites will be extremely slow or blocked unless you opt into a special gaming package. Any website that’s worth anything would become part of a package, leaving “basic” internet a lonesome place, full of spam and boring stuff no one wants.

Or maybe, just maybe, Google doesn’t want to fuck itself over and ruin it’s reputation. Let’s pause and take a closer look at Google’s vision of the future of the internet and computing in general. At the 2010 I/O conference, Google introduced some pretty innovative ideas about computing: ideas completely different from what both Apple and Microsoft have been predicting for years. In Google’s vision of the computer’s future, the internet itself would replace computer operating systems. Choosing your browser would be like choosing Windows 7, Apple’s Snow Leopard or Ubuntu. The internet, thanks to HTML5, would become application rich rather than full of simple websites with mostly pictures and text. Remember the Google PacMan homepage? That was Google saying, “Hey! Look what I can do! This will be the future of the internet!” This PacMan game was made available to practically all Google users, no matter what browser they were using, what plug ins they had installed by using absolutely no flash whatsoever. Even Firefox is rearranging their entire web browsing layout for Firefox 4 in anticipation of these extremely powerful web applications.

So when Googlezon refers to “additional online services,” there’s a possibility they’re actually still talking about the same things they’ve been talking about all along. Having “additional online services” could mean that you can purchase a web application that makes your entire computer (including all your programs and documents) available on any computer you happen to be on, with no additional software install required. And if you want to open Final Cut Pro or play World of Warcraft, these applications would load immediately, whereas Wikipedia would load at our current broadband speed. Or possibly faster, since broadband speeds are only going to increase as the years pass.

The second part of the open Internet proposal that has everyone’s panties in a twist is the section on “wireless broadband” aka internet on your cellphone or similar device. The proposal states that because of the “unique technical and operational characteristics” of wireless internet, and the fact that new innovations are happening every day, wireless broadband is not to be regulated the same way as traditional broadband. The proposal asks that wireless internet be subject to the Transparency regulations, and that’s it. Once a year these wireless internet regulations would be assessed and changed if necessary.

People are very much up in arms about this one. In a comment on Google’s blog post about the Proposals, one commenter writes:

Way to find a loophole in Net Neutrality via wireless, Google. “We will NOT prioritize our content (unless it’s on wireless which is the future of networking…).”

This post seems to imply that Google was just waiting for a chance to exploit the system, although it is unclear any motivation Google has to promote tiered internet. People online seem to think that Google would some how benefit from a tiered internet plan, even though they’re not an internet service provider and they offer most of their services completely free of charge. It’s not like they released a little mobile operating system called Android, which is completely open source and a great alternative to Apple’s more restrictive iPhone. Oh wait, they did.

The fact is, mobile broadband is completely different than traditional broadband. You know that $60 GPS application you just purchased? That’s an “additional online service.” I, for one, wouldn’t mind if my GPS application on my phone gets information faster than my web browser, especially since I paid for the GPS application expecting it to function properly. And don’t forget about all the other applications on your phone that use internet services.

As an example, let’s use a brand new feature on Apple’s new iPhone 4: FaceTime. FaceTime allows users to video chat, face to face, through their cell phone. Currently, this feature is only available for people connecting to the Internet via wifi and not through 3G network service. It’s important to note that in this instance, wifi is traditional broadband, while the 3G network is wireless broadband.

Since wireless broadband technology is advancing so quickly, FaceTime may soon be available through 3G rather than exclusively wifi. Using FaceTime on the 3G network would be considered an “additional online service.” As a result, AT&T (or whatever network the iPhone is on) would legally be allowed to ensure that consumers who purchased the iPhone 4 could use the FaceTime feature without loading problems. The internet may load a little slower in comparison (but not too slow, otherwise you’d have a lot of angry customers and angry customers are bad for business). That being said, when I say that the internet may “load a little slower,” I’m taking into account the speed increase that would be required to handle FaceTime over the 3G network. Not to mention 4G (which is still far off in the future, despite any claims by current networks).

I will admit, all the ideas I just expressed are speculation, the same as all the other blog posts on the subject. Which is exactly why the details in the wireless broadband section needed to be left out of the proposal. No one knows what new cell phone innovation is going to come next, so to set too many rules and regulations now would put a cap on innovation and potential. By going back and reviewing these technological advancements on a yearly basis, we would allow creation as well as proper regulation against unfair practices.

What it All Means

In the last section of the Googlezon proposal, it is discussed how the FCC would be the regulating body to ensure that ISPs aren’t finding any loop holes or taking advantage of their customers. This would give power back into a (hopefully) unbiased organization, something that the Comcast court decision took away. This is a good thing.

With the internet becoming more and more essential to many people’s day to day lives, Net Neutrality has become an extremely sensitive issue. There is a lingering fear, somewhere in the background, that everything we know and love about the internet will just disappear one day, and there will be nothing anyone can do about it. This fear is somehow trapped in our global subconscious, and it rears its ugly head every time there is an attempt at change, even if it is the next logical evolutionary step of the internet. Take a look at the downfall of Google Wave. Despite being a logical evolutionary step for email, people were reluctant to change, and we can now wave goodbye to Google Wave.

What we really need is critical thinking. We need room for innovation. We need regulation so we don’t have a company like BP spilling oil all over the internet. Simply ignoring the situation and assuming everything is going to stay the same, always, is naïve. Responding to the Googlezon open Internet proposal with anger and fear is similar to the Record Industry getting mad at the cassette tape. Change is coming, and instead of standing on the corner of the street with a sign reading “The End Is Near,” let’s take a look at how these changes might realistically help or harm us in the long run.

I may be completely wrong in everything I’ve just wrote. Maybe Google and Verizon will somehow take over the internet and in five years there will be nothing left. Maybe the government will use these recent court cases as a means to block sites like WikiLeaks and The Pirate Bay. Hell, they’ve already started taking domains offline.

But, according to the Googlezon proposal, it doesn’t look like Google and Verizon are in cahoots with anyone wishing to censor the internet. On the contrary, they’re looking to set up a system to protect the right’s of the internet in an ever changing world. Maybe you interpreted the proposal in a completely different way than me. You could be right.

Before we start freaking out, let’s make sure we have our facts straight. Speculation is just unbecoming.

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Rekindling the Passion for Piercing

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In recent years, it’s become increasingly common for piercers to get burned out. This comes as no surprise, a piercer’s day to day life revolves around the same repetitive tasks: performing the same piercings over and over, repeating the same aftercare instructions that no one listens to, and fixing the same problems from inferior shops in their area. When one does the same things over and over, day after day, for years on end, it’s no shock that one can lose touch with what drew them to piercing in the first place.

It’s time for piercers to reignite the passion that brought them into the piercing industry in the first place. We need to look back at what sparked the desire to ask for a piercing apprenticeship all those years ago: to hang out around tattoo artists.

“I’ve never been able to draw,” says Jeff Reemy, 26, from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “Tattoos are awesome, but I’ll never be a tattoo artist.”

When Jeff was 18, he was working for a fast food chain and spending all his free money on tattoos. When he wasn’t getting tattooed, he was hanging around the shop. That’s when the idea first hit him.

“I was spending a lot of time sitting around talking to the piercer, who didn’t do much of anything, ever. That’s when he let me in on the secret.”

Apprenticing to pierce not only means hanging out in a tattoo shop all day, but you can also get free tattoos by becoming friends with the artists. Once you work in a tattoo shop, all you had to do was bring in a tub of brownies or take an artist out to dinner. Suddenly you had a back piece.

“This is what being a piercer is all about,” Jeff continued. “Getting tattoos for next to nothing.”

But not all piercers think this is ethical. Sarah Proust, 34, piercer from Houston, Texas has a different idea.

“A back piece is worth so much more than a dinner at a nice restaurant,” she explained. “You’ve got to get them a new tattoo machine or iPod or something like that. Piercers today have no idea what a good tattoo is really worth.”

Many people chalk these differences in opinion to the extreme generational gap between these two piercers. Sarah was piercing in the mid-90’s, while Jeff didn’t get his start until 2002. Back in the 90’s, piercing was so popular that there was almost no time for a piercer to get tattooed. Piercers often found themselves in a dilemma.

“If you turned a piercing away in order to get tattooed, the owner would simply fire you and get a new piercer. And then you wouldn’t be able to get free tattoos. You didn’t have a choice.”

Every year, since 1995, the Associate of Professional Piercers (APP) has held an annual conference in Las Vegas. This event draws piercers from all over the world together in one place, where they are able to share the passion that bonds them all together.

“The APP conference is great,” explains Crystal Heathers, 29, a piercer from Ontario, Canada. “You get to see so many different people’s tattoos. It’s simply amazing.”

Crystal even argues that the annual APP conference is better than going to a tattoo convention.

“Since piercers get tattooed for free, they’re able to get ridiculous tattoos that no one in their right mind would ever pay for. I’ve got a tattoo a of squirrel shitting a rainbow onto a big plate of bacon.”

In today’s modern world, many piercers learn more about their craft through tools such as the internet. Websites such as Body Modification EZine (BME) and BodyMod.org provide places for piercers to get together and really talk about tattoos. Many piercers find these communities an invaluable resource for learning where all the best tattoo artists work.

“I’ve learned so many great things from BME. Even if there aren’t many tattoo artists with websites there, there are tons of knowledgeable piercers who know exactly where I can do guest spots in order to get great free tattoos.”

However, there is a downside to online communities. These websites can also be extremely frustrating for today’s modern piercer who just wants to learn the best places to get free tattoos. There are numerous distracting forums dedicated to the specifics of different piercing techniques and the values of different aftercare solutions.

The forums can get quite heated, with piercers arguing over the superiority of piercing free-hand versus using tools. They’ll discuss the ingredients that make up different aftercare solutions, arguing minute details such as individual enzymes and the chickens they come from.

“These piercers are losing touch with what really matters in piercing,” Jeff claims. “At the end of the day, it’s all about having a job that allows you to get free tattoos. I think that we, as a community, have lost sight of that.”

In a world where navel, nostril, and ear piercings have become mainstream and almost no client wants to venture beyond that, it’s easy for piercers to lose faith in their chosen career path. It’s at this point that we, as a community of piercers, must return to our roots: the passion for free tattoos. It is only then that the piercing industry will get the refresh it so desperately needs.

*Every person quoted in this article is a complete work of fiction, as are all the views and opinions expressed.

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Things I Love Thursday, August 12th

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I’m totally copying my friend Erin (who got the idea from the blog Gala Darling) and starting Things I Love Thursdays! Every Thursday I’m going to post the things that were absolutely amazing and fantastic that happened that week. And I’m going to share it with all of you.

So, without further ado:

Blogging: In case you couldn’t tell, I started blogging this week! I’ve been meaning to start a blog for a while, but could never really decide on a topic to focus on or a direction to take it. Then I decided screw it, and just started one to use as a catch all for all my thoughts and ideas. It feels really great to be writing again, and I’m really impressed with myself for figuring out domains, hosting, Dreamweaver, installing web apps, WordPress, and getting this up and running. So now I’ve got my own domain and a blog to focus attention on. It feels great to have something I’ve wanted for so long.

Preformed Thermoplastic Street Graffiti – I mean, if that’s what it’s even called. I’ve always loved artful graffiti and sticker projects all over the city, but I’ve just recently become obsessed with the street artists who lay works down in the middle of the street. That’s some heavy duty stuff. I really want to figure out exactly how it’s done (the materials and how these people get them melted into the asphalt). Every time I see one, I just think about all the thought and energy that had to go into that project, and it just makes me incredibly happy.

Successful Budgeting: Money this week was super tight, but I was able to make it through the entire week without dipping into my savings account at all! It’s easy to look at your budget and say “I can afford to spend an average of $12 each day until payday” and it’s another thing to actually do it. Especially when that $12/day budget needs to cover food for that day. It’s difficult, but when the week is over (direct deposit while I sleep tonight!) it just feels great.

Chavie: I’ve got two cats, and this week I’m going to focus on the amazingness that is Chavie. Chavie (short for Yocheved) is my female cat. She is one of the strangest cats I’ve ever owned. For a long time I thought she was retarded (like, actually mentally handicapped) but now I just think she’s quirky. She seems to lack any knowledge (or care) of what’s going on around her. She’ll be lying on her back in the middle of a doorway, and not even notice when you walk up to go by. You can take your foot and push her out of the way, and she’ll just slide across the floor. If you want to get her off a table, she’ll slide until she ungracefully falls off (rather than jumping down). Hell, it’s hard to describe, but she’s just weird and amazing.

What a slut.

Egg Salad Sandwiches: Back on the topic of budgeting, egg salad sandwiches from the local deli are the best $3.75 sandwich ever! Getting an egg salad sandwich, on a roll, with mustard (the extra mustard does wonders) is possibly the most satisfying inexpensive food ever. So even if I’m trying to conserve money by cutting back my food budget, I can still get food that makes me incredibly happy.

Et Al: Insurance companies, finally getting computer problems resolved, finding restaurants near your apartment you never knew about, knowing you’re reliable enough that someone asked you to feed their fish while they’re out of town, FUTURAMA, productivity, actually having two days off in a row!, Monster Trail Mix from Target, always remembering to set auto brew on the coffee machine, finishing a carton of milk before it goes bad, guest piercers in town, cotton canvas’, sharing your favorite iPhone apps, listening to music you haven’t listened to in years, WAITING UNTIL THE VERY LAST MINUTE ON THURSDAY TO PUBLISH THIS POST.

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Tax The Rich!

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Correct me if I’m wrong but…

It always infuriates me when people say that we should “tax the rich.” In theory, this idea is great. There are numerous articles listing extremely shocking statistics:

1% of households (the upper class) owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth. (source)

When you really think about it, those numbers are huge. So enormous that it can be hard for people in the lower class, middle class, or even upper class to fathom what it must be like to be a part of the elite ultra-rich. To be in an income bracket where it does not even matter whether your taxes are raised or not. They’re making more money in one day than could spent in an entire week. Even if they have a side hobby of collecting small islands. It’s mind blogging.

When we hear “we need to raise taxes for the rich,” many are quick to accept this idea. It has, in essence, become a mantra to many democrats. But regardless of political leanings, or whether you agree with tax hikes or not, the reasoning behind this concept is quite clear: these people are earning more, they are consuming more, they should pay more to support the infrastructure that has given them so much. But it doesn’t quite work like that.

Taxing the rich does not tax the rich.

Taxing the rich does absolutely nothing to resolve the issue of unbalanced distribution of wealth in America. The rich do not pay taxes. Yes, that is correct, the rich do not pay taxes.

The top 1% of the population (you know, the ones with 34.6% of the money) do not pay income tax like you and me. Their money is gained through acquisitions, sales, mergers, accounting, and other such ways. All their expenses are written off or funneled through corporations. When new tax laws come into place, they find ways around them. They move money around, between corporation to corporation, and find ways to keep their money. Everything can be a business expense. And owning a corporation is as filing a piece of paper.

When making money becomes more of a game than anything else, having someone take away your money means losing the game. Even if that “someone” is a government whose officials have way less money than you. Especially when the source of income is extremely confusing even when dumbed down. You’re untouchable.

Sure, people making over $250,000 have a lot of money, and are richer than most Americans. But they’re not the one’s causing the problems, because many of them DO pay taxes. Raising their taxes even more doesn’t help any issues at all, but instead keeps the lower, middle, and upper classes arguing and debating while the ultra-rich acquire even more money. The mantra “tax the rich!” is a red herring that (mostly) punishes those that are already helping.

There are no easy solutions to any of these problems, and I cannot offer any ideas myself. Rather than blindly raising taxes, we need to find a way to show the ultra rich that spending money on those with less money will bring them greater wealth in the end. Which is difficult, especially when so many of the ultra rich make their money in accounting, trading and other sources of intangible income.

We need to focus on tackling the root of our problems, rather than simply putting on band aids. Wanting to tax people making over $250,000/year is a band aid and nothing more. Many of those people are just like you and me. People who had a great idea, followed through, had some luck, and now they’re making good money. Someday I hope to make over $250,000/year myself. And when I finally make it, making me give you more money won’t help anything. I’ll be resentful, you’ll have a temporary fix, and the problems will continue.

Raising taxes does not effect those who aren’t paying taxes. The ultra rich aren’t paying taxes. Let’s get a new mantra.

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