A headstone of 140 characters

I didn’t fully intend for this to happen, but I didn’t tweet for 25 hours. Some kind of Twitter detox, I guess you could say. Twitter is such that you get a lot of small bursts of information, and despite them individually being in bite-sized chunks, that’s no different to having to read a drab academic article on journalism especially when you might follow a lot of people, or the people you follow are borderline spam with their retweets of teen quote accounts and love lyrics or just whining or using Twitter as an instant messaging service. Information overload isn’t pretty, and that may explain why some people don’t read everything on their timeline, and you’re certainly not expected to.

That aside, I don’t put my following at fault, because I follow people on Twitter because I’m interested in what they tweet. So the other night when one of my favourite bands The Griswolds tweeted about their remix of Hey Geronimo’s song Carbon Affair, I had to click that YouTube link and watch it right away. I’d been expecting it for a couple of days. I found the video horrible but hilarious. I don’t particularly like remixes but The Griswolds made a huge parody out of this one by using Andrew (from Hey Geronimo) - or his face, rather - as the subject of the video. It was the hardest I’d laughed that week, and jokingly tweeted this:

https://twitter.com/georgiecel/status/278072550611881984

I had a very silly idea that I would pretend I really did die watching that video and not tweet for a while just to make people worried. I usually don’t pull these kinds of jokes but I was bored, and tweeting less would be a challenge to see how long I would last. After tweeting such a message it was easy to just leave Twitter alone and not tweet, and from that moment I decided to go back to finalising my Christmas cards, and shut Twitter for the night.

Last Friday I bought some pretty paper and card to make Christmas cards. I lost interest in Christmas cards a few years ago when Christmas stopped being a big thing for my family (I don’t remember the last year we put a Christmas tree). I also tend to hoard things, and I still have Christmas cards from fifteen years ago, which is pretty awful. Only recently have I managed to put some into the recycling. In this digital age, it’s a bit sad to know that that is how something like greeting cards are left to be, but a lot of other things we use are also eventually used and let go of and thrown out. Despite that, I thought it’d be nice to send some Christmas cards to my fellow bloggers, given that we really only keep in touch online and sending an e-card would be a bit redundant given that our only point of contact is online.

I enjoyed making the cards more than I thought, and they’re simpler than I expected them to be. I was also shipping some gifts overseas and I didn’t want to spend too much money on pretty paper, not to mention the postage of greeting cards really adding up. I’m keen to send out some more so feel free to

if you are interested in exchanging cards (or gifts, if you’re keen!).

It was night-time so Twitter was fairly easy to ignore. Throughout the day it was tempting to reply to a few people whose tweets I caught a glimpse of, but I managed to keep myself busy at work. I think I got a few messages from some people but I waited until later to respond to them. Close to 24 hours passing, I thought it’d be a boredom-cure to hold myself a little “Twitter funeral”. I fished up @georgiebot, my Twitter bot (I’ve just programmed it to say random catchphrases every couple of hours), and got Daniel to help me post status updates on a memorial service.

I was reminded of my funeral playlist, a small list of songs I wanted to have played at my funeral. I know people have often completed memes for something like “Soundtrack of my life” or “Songs summing up this year”, and for me that’s just something that gets added to over time, or simply develops. But ever since discovering my love for Montpelier’s music, I’ve found that their emotional songs would be songs I would want played at my funeral. Also, thinking about the songs I’d like played when I get married, it made me think of another huge event in one’s life where they play music, so that got me thinking about funeral music - and why must it be sad and dull? So I made a list in my head, and decided I’d tell my friends that they would have to play Hey Geronimo at the conclusion of my funeral if I ever happen to die before them. It’s a peculiar thing to think about, but it sort of sums up your life better than thinking about the soundtrack of your life - because while your life’s soundtrack would contain songs representing individual and special moments and memories, the soundtrack at your funeral would be songs that people would remember you by, and for… and they would be songs you’d want those closest to you to hear when they gather to remember you.

Naive Orleans (acoustic) - Anberlin

Girl - Montpelier

The Rafters - Montpelier

Danny - Montpelier

China Shop - Montpelier

Last Boat - Montpelier

I Started a Joke - Bee Gees

Don’t Wear Me Out - Oceanship

Just For You - William Tell

Swing Life Away - Rise Against

So Long, Lonesome - Explosions in the Sky

Cry With Music - Lime Cordiale

Co-op Bookshop - Hey Geronimo

Dreamboat Jack - Hey Geronimo

Heart of a Lion - The Griswolds

Evil Woman - ELO

I listened to my ridiculous funeral playlist while Daniel tweeted this funeral service, and it made me sad that half of the songs were not even fun. I’d always thought - make the people cry, then make them dance. I watched a drama television show once where a girl recorded a video just before she passed away and in it she said to her friends, “Don’t you dare cry!” The video was humourous and littered with jokes, and that was how she wanted to be remembered. She said she didn’t want anyone crying about her, she wanted them to remember her and smile.

I like the sound of that, but of course, if I actually weren’t alive, there would be at least a few people crying and unable to smile.

https://twitter.com/georgiebot/status/278444688791445504

https://twitter.com/georgiebot/status/278445416226365440

https://twitter.com/georgiebot/status/278446193086955520

https://twitter.com/georgiebot/status/278446721816727553

Those were my favourite tweets that Daniel came up with; I absolutely adored the references to Hey Geronimo and his witty remarks - albeit posting as my bot, my alter-ego, my evil twin, myself from a parallel universe, et cetera.

Following that, I “came back to life” after a tweet about the video that made me die of laughter. It’s strange what comes to mind when it comes to microblogging - you couldn’t do this on a regular blog. The internet makes even the most morbid things funny. I’m pretty sure if I found myself in a dark coffin hearing music on the outside, I’d panic more so than just demand to be let out.

Do you know what you’d want played at your funeral? Or would you be cool with dancing monkeys or a scene from Evil Dead 2 being played up on a big screen?