On the merits of blogging

        Twitter. Tweets. The ubiquitous Fail Whale. You'd be hard pressed to find someone who didn't know the meaning of any of these in today's society. Why have they become so popular? Are the services that they're offering or the ideas they're symbolizing really that valuable? Above all, who would pay attention to, or even care about what Taylor Swift is eating today? If she isn't even in my Monkeysphere, why should I care about Taylor Swift at all? The answer lies in the fact that we live in a celebrity-worshiping culture.

        Of course, the knowledge of the going-ons in the life of a particular figure have no intrinsic value. Yet, tweets have become some sort of commodity as of late. Think of them as some sort of social currency; we dredge the schedules of celebrities from their public pages so we may share them with others in exchange for more gossip. The supply is in the social network, and the demand is in the heart of the general populace. Social economies of scale thrive upon the adoration of the public for its leading figures. But, if economic theory is applicable here, we must face the grim reality that some day there will be a market collapse.

        Consider Black Tuesday. People were reaping enormous profits off of the stock market. As news of this spread, more and more people joined with the belief that profit was just a moment and a dollar away. As more and more people were buying random stock on a whim, the markets became more unstable. When the stocks began to devalue, everyone panicked and dumped their shares onto the market. People lost a large amount of money and our nation was launched into the great depression. People and families suffered.

        Consider Akon. His managers were all the rage at parties because they could tell pretty much anyone what the star was up to. Others, wanting to gain similar status, started gathering information about celebrities with breakneck speed, believing that popularity was just a talking point or a click away. But many of these socialites failed to realize that not all of the information they had was important, and at some point people would tire of hearing their hapless chatter. This is the way the Twitter ends. This is the way the Twitter ends.

TL;DR: don't invest in gossip, it's worthless and it'll cause a social market meltdown. </rant>