Who are some good people to follow on Twitter?

[sufrommich]

I mean besides the obvious politicians and news commentators. I love the tweet GeorgeTakei sends when you follow him:

Thx for being a "tweep"--I hope you RT me hard & often! Don't forget to #FF me if you like my stream. Oh Myyyy, that sounds naughty.

[JHB]

1. Generic Anthony Weiner joke

An AW joke takes no effort, so I'm putting none into it.

[JHB]

2. More seriously...

I'm new to Twitter myself, so thanks for asking this question. I'm interested in what the answers will be too.

[AsahinaKimi]

3. You can follow me!

AsahinaKimiko on twitter. I am following some famous people and being followed by some famous people (like Yoko Ono) and some Asian singers and bands.

[onehandle]

4. Wide open question. I have different lists/accounts for different interests. (edit)

But generally, Neil Patrick Harris @ActuallyNPH, Steve Martin @SteveMartinToGo, Stephen Fry @stephenfry, and Michael McKean @mjmckean are fun.

Additionally, click on 'Who To Follow' and then 'Interests' while in web based Twitter for good suggestions.

[highplainsdem]

5. Andy Borowitz's BorowitzReport account:

http://twitter.com/BorowitzReport

[rucky]

29. +1

highly rec'd!

[gauguin57]

62. An example of Andy Borowitz from a few minutes ago. Tee-hee!

@BorowitzReport

Andy Borowitz

Bristol Palin didn't perform that well on Dancing With the Stars because she's really more of a writer.

[Ruby the Liberal]

6. Here are some of my more eclectic and in many cases funny ones

@azlanmedia
@billmaher
@owillis
@thedailyshow
@vanjones68
@breakingnews
@mmflint
@maddow
@mariopiperni
@badbanana
@adamisacson
@shitmydadsays

[NYCGirl]

9. @badbanana is brilliant!

This guy is great, too.

http://twitter.com/#!/otoolefan

[Lex]

20. I'll check out @badbanana

The escaped Bronx Zoo Cobra had me lmao during that time.

[NYCGirl]

22. Yes! The Bronx Zoo Cobra twitter was fantastic. As for

kittehs, check out SOCKINGTON (some really funny writing).

http://twitter.com/#!/sockington

He has 1.5 million followers!

[Lex]

25. Thanks. :)

[MadHound]

7. Or you could follow nobody at all,

And actually do something productive with that lost time.

Seriously, why do you want to waste time living vicariously through others?

[NYCGirl]

8. Or we could waste time coming here talking to you.

Don't you get that it's the same thing?

[MadHound]

10. Well, at least here, you have a conversation with people

As opposed to twitter where you also "follow" people.

Sorry, but there is indeed a difference.

[NYCGirl]

11. You can have conversations with people on Twitter, too.

Either private or public. (You'd think folks here would've learned something from Weiner.)

You just have to stick to 140 characters at a time. Cuts down on the pedantic droning.

[MadHound]

12. 140 characters is not a conversation, sorry.

It is a couple of lines, that's all. But hey, if that's what you want to waste your time with:shrug:

[NYCGirl]

13. I think both your last two posts were under 140 characters.

Edited to add: Not THE ENTIRE CONVERSATION has to be 140 characters or under. Just each response.

[Lex]

14. Hahaha. That was excellent, NYCGirl.

:thumbsup:

[MadHound]

15. LOL! I was wondering if you would be counting,

Sad, truly sad.

The meta point being made is why do you feel the need to "follow" people, celebrity or otherwise? Really, do you need to know what your mother had for breakfast, or what some media star thinks about their morning coffee? Seriously, I find it inane. How much time do you spent on twitter every day? You don't think that it is time that could be better spent doing something else, like actually living life rather than vicariously following others?

[NYCGirl]

17. No, I didn't count. Just guessed. And the meta point I'm making

is don't you think that time can be better spent by living life than by judging other's lives?

P.S. I spend more time here than on Twitter each day. But I get very good info and links at Twitter because I make sure to follow people who provide them. And 800+ folks follow me. But I seldom talk politics myself there; I stick to classic film, mostly.

[MadHound]

24. Judging other people's lives,

Just as much as you're judging mine. I expressed an opinion, you expressed yours, we disagree. What judgment is involved in that.

Big whoop though, eight hundred plus folks following you, what is this, a junior high popularity contest? Is that what Twitter and Facebook are turning this world into? "I've got more followers than you do" Certainly sounds that way.

[AsahinaKimi]

47. if you follow the news services

You can pick up stories faster and sometimes find stuff no one else has posted on here. Its a great resource to news...and to news blogs.

[NYCGirl]

48. It is the purest, fastest source of breaking news. You have to

use your judgement and a grain of salt, but isn't that always the case?

[Lex]

18. It's a great source for news and other information, primarily.

You can tailor who you follow to suit what news/info you'd like show up in your twitter feed.

It's not about who had what for breakfast for god's sake.

[NYCGirl]

26. Absolutely right. BTW, I'm @baileymarkham on Twitter.

As I said, though, I rarely discuss politics these days.

[MadHound]

28. It's not? Really?

Sorry, but from what I've seen of the medium, that's exactly what it is.

As far as news goes, I can find better, more reliable sources than people on Twitter.

You like it, fine, waste your time with it. I've got more constructive things to do.

[Lex]

32. It IS the news source directly tweeting.

You clearly don't understand how to use Twitter or what it's for, which is fine, but you are seriously quite misinformed about it.

For example, Keith Olbermann tweeting, or CNN breaking news tweeting, etc. That's not people talking about what they had for breakfast.

[MadHound]

34. No, but Paris Hilton tweeting about her latest shoe purchase

Is that truly news? Repeat that thousands of times, in a thousand different iterations, ad nauseum.

Is there value in Twitter, yes. However I think that value is vastly overrated, and that Twitter is simply another fancy time killer for people to escape into while real life passes them by. You don't like that opinion, fine, you don't have to. It is, after all, an opinion, albeit based on facts and observation.

[NYCGirl]

37. So follow Rachel Maddow and DON'T follow Paris Hilton.

It's that easy.

[MadHound]

42. I don't follow anybody,

Like I said, I find the whole Twitter thing another inane timewaster. Much like our current conversation. You don't like what I say about tweeting, whatever, but you aren't going to convince me otherwise, so I guess we'll agree to disagree. Goodbye.

[Lex]

38. Easy, then DON'T FOLLOW HER.

That's how it works. Your Twitter feed is customizable to who and what you're interested in.

If you like to argue about something that you've never even used and have only a vague knowledge of how it works, and that's how you like to spend your valuable time, that's fine by me. Have a blast.

[MadHound]

43. But far too many people do follow her, that's the point

More timewasting following inane "celebrities" throughout their vapid lives. Ah well, speaking of vapid and pointless, I'm out of this thread now, bye:hi:

[Lex]

44. Too many people read over at FreeRepublic too, but

the fact that do doesn't keep me from logging in at DU and reading here.

Bye :hi:

[Ruby the Liberal]

49. Thats why you follow sources that aren't vapid.

[gauguin57]

58. You can use Twitter to keep up with breaking news -- political and otherwise.

You don't have to follow celebrities to find out what they had for breakfast.

You can follow the arts sections of various newspapers, like I do. Or a bunch of different book pages.

Or all the Smithsonian museums, like I do (so much interesting info every day); or all the public radio shows (so you can see what's going to be featured on that day).

You can follow the producers on news shows you admire -- they give you the behind-the-scenes info that the celeb journalist might not.

Twitter can be inane, or incredibly useful. Depends on who and what you follow.

I agree with the young reporter who's in the new Front Page doc. about the New York Times: If you're a reporter, you HAVE to be on Twitter. He learns at midnight what other reporters haven't heard till noon.

[rucky]

31. If this is your idea of a conversation...

I'll stick to the Twitter.

[Lex]

16. Here are some good ones:

@CountdownKO Keith O
@jaketapper Jake Tapper
@cnnbrk CNN Breaking News
@ebertchicago Roger Ebert
@TWCBreaking The Weather Channel breaking weather news
@MJMcKean Michael McKean
@theharryshearer Harry Shearer
@RollingStone Rolling Stone music news

[tishaLA]

23. tapper's is surprisingly good, isn't it?

When I started following him, I thought I'd unfollow in no time, but he's funny and often far more insightful than his stupid reporting would suggest. Chuck Todd's is unbearable, but somehow I continue to follow him, too.

[Lex]

33. Yes, I like Tapper. He does

irritate from time to time.

[tishaLA]

19. Ezra Klein is great @ezraklein

and I follow Greg Sargent @ThePlumLine68, @SarahKSilverman, @DavidCornDC, @Ebertchicago (maybe the best twitter feed out there), @CoryBooker, @mqsawyer (professor of Poli Sci at UCLA, expert on Afro-Latino and Cuba issues), and @MHarrisPerry, who is unfortunately beginning a 6 week break from twitter so she can do some writing.

I don't follow many people. But those are some of them you might not otherwise follow.

[Lex]

21. I agree. Roger Ebert is great to follow. nt

[Habibi]

45. Ebert is great!

[gauguin57]

52. I follow David Corn, Cory Booker and Roger Ebert, too. And maybe PlumLine (not sure)

Thanks for the other suggestions.

[LuckyTheDog]

27. Me!

@MichPositive

[NYCGirl]

30. Done! NT

[greenbird]

35. Rosanne Cash

is a hoot. John Fugelsang is good, too.

[Lex]

39. +1

[Ruby the Liberal]

50. I follow John Fugelsang too. Don't remember when or why I added him.

I have a tendency to add people who are hot on a current story and then forget why I added them as I only check twitter in spurts and sometimes months go by. I still have some prolific twitter peeps from the 2009 Iran Green Revolution in my feed. Keeps the stream interesting!

[JuniperLea]

36. See my sigline...

I've avoided twitter like the plague mainly because we had someone at work that could do nothing but be a twit on oh, so many levels. He was a twitter freak.

Fugelsang is the only person I follow... no account, just follow... and not all that closely either:)

[sufrommich]

53. I love John Fugelsang and already follow him. He cracks me up.nt

[Missy Vixen]

40. I enjoy the following

@andersoncooper
@rogerebert
@TPM
@drunkhulk
@gonnakillhim
@mouthyhousewives

and, last but not least,

@julieinduvall, aka me.

[gauguin57]

60. In addition to TPM, there's @joshtpm

For Josh Marshall.

[EFerrari]

41. A faster way to do this is to go see who people you like follow

I used parts of Greg Mitchell's, Margaret Atwood's & DemocracyNow!'s lists, others.

[seaglass]

46. thecajunboy - love him, funny, current events, politics, sports n/t

[gauguin57]

51. Comedian Patton Oswalt is absolutely hilarious. Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin are fun.

Chris Cilizza tweets great stuff from inside various Washington events.

Peter Sagal of "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" (public radio) is funny.

I like Scott Simon's Tweets. I follow a lot of public radio, CNN and MSNBC people, and a lot of NY Times & WaPost people.

Andy Borowitz makes me laugh.

I sometimes add people as circumstances demand. It was fun, for example, to watch Seth Meyers and Anderson Cooper talk to each other on Twitter after Seth joshed Anderson at the Correspondents' Dinner.

[gauguin57]

54. @daveweigel is good, too

I'm sure you know this, already, but to find the official Twitter page of a celeb, look for the green check mark.

[gauguin57]

55. Also ... once you start following people, you'll see suggestions on the right-hand side

... of your Twitter page.

I've found a lot of the folks I follow by just doing that.

[sufrommich]

56. Thanks everyone for the great responses. I'm off to check

out some of the ones I haven't seen before.

[gauguin57]

57. If you want to follow the biggest name-dropper on the planet, follow Martha Stewart.

... she's always tweeting from some fabulous restaurant, or some conference where she's sitting next to Bill Gates or some other famous person.

I've long had a love-hate relationship with Martha (though she's a good Democrat) ... and, at first, I found her tweets appalling. But I do learn about who's hanging out with whom, and who's working on what project (and not just in a gossipy way).

I follow her because I admire how she took her medicine, went to jail, and wound up turning the whole lemon into a massive pitcher of lemonade.

[a kennedy]

59. I keep my eye on Aaron Rodgers.....yes, that MVP of the Super

Bowl Aaron Rodgers. Good guy. GO PACKERS GO. :evilgrin:

[FarLeftFist]

61. The INDECIDER!

https://twitter.com/#!/TheInDecider

#1