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 Poetry month on NPR: doesn't it seem like the correspondents are... too excited? And now they are throwing twitter into the mix. Why? Is it the only way to get people to pay attention to poetry? Is that our attention span? Or is it more insidious than that: are they trying to be cute?

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 We just received a special announcement from Kashi, makers of cereal, snack bars, frozen dinners and other food with a health, planet, and "lifestyle" conscious vibe. They have a new branding campaign for their "Good Friends" high fiber cereal: they are putting you on the box! Just what do they hope to accomplish? Aside from slimming that waste-line, with lots of high-fiber goodness, their new cereal box also promises to trim that white liberal guilt away in no time!

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 After reading this comic you might be thinking to yourself, "man, Bjorn has a really low opinion of marketing people," but actually what inspired this comic is not what you think. I happen to know a few really amazing marketing people. These people not only follow hip new trends and know what's up, but they actually understand things like how to analyze sales and other data to see if marketing campaigns worked. These folks also seem to use Twitter very effectively, and it got me curious, so I did some googling to find out how you might use that new-fangled twittery-thing for marketing purposes. The results of my research are in the comic.

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When the internet first came out people talked about how it was going to "democratize" free press, by which they meant lowering the barriers to entry (sort of like when Alan Greenspan said that sub-prime loans would "democratize" credit. They are confusing capitalism with democracy. Ayn Rand would be proud.) Well they were sort of right: it's really cheap to start a blog/website/online-magazine/whatever and tell people what you think about things. Look at me doing it right now! Unfortunately, for the most part, if you are highly opinionated, you will usually be preaching to the choir. So, in the end, democracy is pretty much unchanged.

Twitter is sort of the same way. It started out as something fun and when people started engaging in politics or news on twitter, suddenly it was changing the very nature of politics and news. Sane people knew this was ridiculous, but sane people can never stop the hype machine. Hopefully twitter won't be hurt by overblown expectations.

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In case you didn't know this about me, I am a big dork. Not only that, but I'm not really into new-fangled things like twitter, and so on. While I love computers, I have more in common with the old Unix guy with the beard than the kid at the dotcom with his fancy new laptop: I hate buying new laptops. I rarely get excited about new hardware or things like twitter. I don't plan to ever buy an iPhone, and it's only recently that I've seen any actual use to the web other than as a diversion. Still, I think this comic represents two sides of my geekiness.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this three-part comic series on why I still just don't get twitter. The next two will be more accessible.

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Sent to us by Allegra Gordon in Philadelphia, PA, just in time, coincidentally, for Gay Pride Day in many Cities across the country