Twitter Gonna Kill Somebody!

This whole insta-communication thing has always been kind of suspect to me. Gone are the days of not answering your phone or ignoring contact with people, regardless how irritating they may be. Case in point, there's at least 5 ways to get in touch with me, if anyone really wanted to reach me. Oddly enough, I don't even have a house phone & know very few people under the age of 40 that do. My little brother hipped me to that "on-the-go" way of life some years back. I thought it was the dumbest idea ever. The only people who shouldn't have house phones are those without houses. Eventually though, my wife & I succumbed, & realized we eliminated a bill. But the trade-off for one less bill isn't necessarily worth being available for comment at all times of the day.

Which leads my to my next point. Say, you did something to me that warranted some immediate attention paying. First, I'll call you. If that doesn't take, I'll text you. Still no dice? I'll send a polite email, & include the fact that I've tried reaching you to no avail. If need be the big guns come out, per se. I'm hitting myspace & FaceBook with an ass load of things to say, knowing damn well that you won't be the only one to read them. This would be the social networking equivalent of DEFCON 3. Privacy is no more an option at this point, seeing as though I've decided to take it to the "streets". My last, & most audacious resort would be to hit you on the Twitter, for the world to see. Now, we're at DEFCON 4, & with a limited amount of shoving, I could make you a trend. Yeah, a trend. Thats when the users make fun of a person/place/thing even if they have no idea why, it just becomes fun & cool to the popular & anonymous alike. Papoose, Bow Wow & Ace Hood have all allen victims of said trending, & it wasn't pretty.
[tony's note: seem as if rapper fabolous has become the spokesperson for dissing other rappers on twitter. i called it a couple weeks back on "what happens in las vegas, goes on twitter". just want my credit....]

There's an incident right now involving blogger Combat Jack (www.daily-math.com) & radio personality Peter Rosenberg of Hot 97fm (the place where Hip Hop lives). Jack took sourly to some thing's Rosenberg said during the morning talk show, & decided to give him a piece of his mind via Twitter. & to think, 10 years ago, you'd have to wait until you caught a nigga slipping at the grocery store. Whatever Jack said was far from insulting, or even insinuating, he merely wanted to make a point in regards to Quadaffi's speech at the UN meeting. Rosenberg, obviously a man of many words, hence his profession, tweeted back to Combat Jack:

"Ill slap the shit out of you in front of ur kids..."

Now, any other interaction between the two is irrelevant. At this juncture, Rosenberg had crossed the sand line Combat drew in the proverbial sand. [tony's note: proverbial is like my most favorite word ever.] Not only did this whole episode not begin with any threatening language or chance for violence, but you don't wave threats in front of a (Black) man, AND involve his children without expecting quite the backlash. Keep in mind, a Black man who does raise his kids is naturally going to be extra territorial over them. & the fact that it was on Twitter, where possibly thousands witnessed the occurrence, only fuels the fires.

Under normal circumstances, Jack, a New Yorker, would have driven to Rosenberg's place of business, also in New York, & the two could've swiftly gotten to the bottom of such blatant douche nozzleness. What made this not "normal", was the fact that Combat Jack is a lawyer, & Rosenberg knows that. Had Jack been in a different place in life, God only knows what may have happened. Well, I have an idea & it would've most likely involved jail time for one, hospital time for the other.

These days, cats like Fabolous go around teasing lesser familiar rappers, breathing new life into the phrase "cyber-bully". Who's to say that one of these not-as-successful rappers decides to make a name for themselves? Back in the days, if the beef were that insistent, one would go to the nearest venue the other was performing at, wait around until the show was over & confront them. No emotional outburst distributed throughout a social network. If "fuck you" is what you wanted to say, you'd first have to possess the balls to say it to someone's face. I'll admit that, as a whole, we've become more aggressive & less confrontational, society-wise. All you need is an ISP address & you can go around spewing as much distaste as your hateful heart desires.

Remember that girl that everyone teased & bullied & humiliated online, who eventually brokedown & committed suicide? Yeah, something like that, but only murder.

Eventually, all that will change though because, & quote me, Twitter's gonna get somebody killed.

**Take a moment & pray for my big homie Dallas Penn. & yourselves, while you're at it.**