Elisa Gabbert Talks Twitter
From The Rumpus:
Rumpus: In a recent essay with The Smart Set, on the topic of aphorisms as essays, you wrote, “Twitter has made my poetry more aphoristic. Formally, it’s a platform ideally suited to the aphorism; in fact aphorisms should be quite a bit less than 140 characters.” Would you describe your tweets as aphoristic? Have they become more aphoristic over time?
Gabbert: Some of my tweets are aphoristic, absolutely. Like “Aphorisms are essays,” the tweet that I turned into the title of that essay. But when I scroll through my timeline they’re mostly not aphoristic. They’re mostly jokes, observations, half-ironic complaints. The easiest way to categorize them outside of just “tweets” is “thoughts.” I usually don’t tweet when there’s someone in the room I can just tell my thoughts to. I compulsively tweet when I’m alone.
Rumpus: We’ve talked about this once or twice on Twitter, but is there a scenario where tweets can replace blog posts? I ask this knowing you just updated your blog, and knowing I hadn’t updated my blog in months.
Gabbert: Yes! I almost never blog anymore! Blogging used to be, for me, a lazy way of writing an essay. But Twitter is an even lazier way of writing an essay! So now I usually either just tweet or write the fucking essay. I use my blog now mostly as a reference to other things, or for lists I want to be able to easily find and link to.
Rumpus: Same. My blog is more or less a hub for all of my writer/editor work that appears elsewhere. At least that’s the theory, should I keep my site updated. Websites in general seem a little antiquated, or less important, since a site’s content can make its way to social media. Are there sites you regularly visit? Do you get your content/news from social media?
Gabbert: There are a few stray blogs I visit regularly, but I use Feedly (an RSS reader) rather than actually visiting them. Aside from that I pretty much just wait for Twitter to surface interesting stuff. But there are times that I want to read something interesting and nothing is surfacing that appeals and at those times I wish I had a go-to aggregator site. Google Reader was ideal for this, because you could build a little community and people would share the best stuff.
“The Rumpus Interview With Elisa Gabbert”, Mensah Demary, The Rumpus
