Did I Do That?
“Did I do that?” was the catch-phrase of Steve Urkel, a character played by Jaleel White for the sitcom ‘Family Matters’ that ran between late 1989 and mid-1997. As the annoying protagonist, the Urkel character typically made a mess of whatever situation in which he appeared, either by saying or doing something foolish, absurd, or stupid. When confronted he feigned surprise and stated “Did I do that?” Then there is the time when, after a night of bar hopping, you came home and began a rant on Twitter (TWTR) about how “…that stupid Barbara T. was a skank for talking to the guy YOU were talking to at the bar, and how she was always in EVERYBODY’S FACE, and was FAT and couldn’t get a guy even if SHE WAS NAKED!”, and then you fell asleep, only to wake up the next morning to realize that instead of Brenda T., who was the skank that you were mad at, you put ‘Barbara T. in the Tweet, with Barbara T. being your boss.
The frantic texts and calls to Twitter about deleting the Tweet came to no avail and the meeting the next day with HR and Barbara T. did not go well, leaving a mangled career path and the swearing off of all drinks with umbrellas, but the Tweet remained as a reminder that restraint is a complex emotion and not an easy one to foster, with or without alcohol, but those days are soon to be over…for a price. It seems that Elon Musk, in his attempt to exit his $44b offer for Twitter, seems to have pushed management to get off the fence about a way for users to retract their Tweets, that is, if they are awake and if they pay $5.00/ month.
Twitter is ‘testing’ its newly developed ‘edit’ button, that would allow users of Twitter Blue, essentially a paid subscription to Twitter that is ad free and has a few ‘custom’ features, but most importantly will allow the ‘edit button to undo any Tweet for 30 minutes, giving one time to reconsider the impact of their latest Tweet. Of course, the user needs to be conscious and coherent enough to realize, “yes, it was you who wrote that…” and not to make it worse by editing the original rant, but the subscription is a requirement and the Tweet will be marked as edited, although that seems a small price to pay to keep your friends, family, or job from firing or ghosting you forever. But there is another catch, and that is as the app stands now, the modified Tweet will have a history attached “to help protect the integrity of the conversation and create a publicly accessable record of what was said…” according to Twitter, which would then open the original Tweet up to those taking the time to check the time-stamped history. Perhaps once this highly requested addition is added to Twitter users will request another ‘level of editing’ that could wipe out the original (for an additional fee?) or a ‘Did I do That?’ button that holds all Tweets for 24 hours if your smartphone smells alcohol. The possibilities are endless…
The frantic texts and calls to Twitter about deleting the Tweet came to no avail and the meeting the next day with HR and Barbara T. did not go well, leaving a mangled career path and the swearing off of all drinks with umbrellas, but the Tweet remained as a reminder that restraint is a complex emotion and not an easy one to foster, with or without alcohol, but those days are soon to be over…for a price. It seems that Elon Musk, in his attempt to exit his $44b offer for Twitter, seems to have pushed management to get off the fence about a way for users to retract their Tweets, that is, if they are awake and if they pay $5.00/ month.
Twitter is ‘testing’ its newly developed ‘edit’ button, that would allow users of Twitter Blue, essentially a paid subscription to Twitter that is ad free and has a few ‘custom’ features, but most importantly will allow the ‘edit button to undo any Tweet for 30 minutes, giving one time to reconsider the impact of their latest Tweet. Of course, the user needs to be conscious and coherent enough to realize, “yes, it was you who wrote that…” and not to make it worse by editing the original rant, but the subscription is a requirement and the Tweet will be marked as edited, although that seems a small price to pay to keep your friends, family, or job from firing or ghosting you forever. But there is another catch, and that is as the app stands now, the modified Tweet will have a history attached “to help protect the integrity of the conversation and create a publicly accessable record of what was said…” according to Twitter, which would then open the original Tweet up to those taking the time to check the time-stamped history. Perhaps once this highly requested addition is added to Twitter users will request another ‘level of editing’ that could wipe out the original (for an additional fee?) or a ‘Did I do That?’ button that holds all Tweets for 24 hours if your smartphone smells alcohol. The possibilities are endless…
Twitter Edit Feature Test Caption - Source: Twitter Blog
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