As I’ve previously told, Twitter has increased my engagement with politics since I no longer own a tv. Backchannels on Twitter during live events or live debates in the Netherlands are very active and contain a nice balance between commentary, humor and cynicism. And last night it included commentary of politicians who weren’t invited to this particular debate.

The debate from last night was filled with tons of clichés and one-liners and was hard to watch without either the power of relativity, humor or cynicism. That’s why I came up with the bullshit bingo consisting of all those worn-out one-liners. I tweeted the picture during the end of the debate and it became a trending picture on Mobypicture.

My picture ended up on tv in a short segment on the election debate:¹

Full clip on the RTL website.

1. All copyright goes to RTL but they don’t offer embed codes and since they used my picture without my consent I guess I can publish this small clip for my friends and family without their consent ;)

I’m currently in New Jersey, writing for my PhD and yesterday was an exceptionally sunny spring Sunday. We visited the Grounds for Sculpture in Trenton, NJ which was absolutely beautiful! Sun, spring, blossom, I loved it. I highly recommend a visit if you’re near Princeton or Trenton, NJ.

More pictures on Flickr.

Inspired by Bender from Futurama. “Web site owners use the /robots.txt file to give instructions about their site to web robots; this is called The Robots Exclusion Protocol.” (robotstxt.org)

We also talked about my social media addiction that started in 1995 and about being offline. In contrast to the early days of the web it is very hard to be offline nowadays. We are nearing an era where being offline is a choice instead of being online. Fred Stutzman, a doctoral student on social media, actually developed the application Freedom for our era “in which our computers resist encroachments of connectivity.” I’m guess I’m not the only social media PhD student for whom being offline doesn’t come naturally.

Listen to the whole episode: WordCast Conversations 8: Anne Helmond on SEO and Social Media

The last image of my tv

Do I stare less at screens? No. Do I watch less series? No. After getting a VPN client a whole world of series opened up to me. The main difference between my life before and after tv? Twitter changed my viewing interests.

The Dutch twitterscene is very active commenting on tv programs. This brings back the old gathering function of tv: everyone watching the same program at the same time accompanied with a Twitter backchannel.  It made me want to watch programs I would have never considered watching before. However, following the hashtag (#) that belongs to the program, to me, is as entertaining as actually watching the show. Snarky, witty comments filling my screen. However, not owning a tv means I cannot participate unless it is streamed live.

With the turmoil around the Comissie Davids (“This independent committee has investigated the preparation and the decision-making process regarding the political support given by the Netherlands for the invasion of Iraq in the period from the summer of 2002 to the summer of 2003.”) a series of debates was held. With Femke Halsema (the leader of the GreenLeft parliamentary party in the House of Representatives since 2002) twittering live during the debate the #irakdebat Twitter backchannel got an extra dimension. Not only did she keep us up to date during the recessions, she participated in the conversation about the debate on Twitter. Never before did I watch political debates which such interest. My Twitter timeline provided me with cynical jokes, political context and supporting links and a strong politician who brought me closer to politics by providing a sense of immediacy.