How much Tweet could a Tweetin' Twitterer Tweet if a Twitterer could Twitter while Tweetin'? If a social networking site with millions and millions of users can bubble under the surface, this was the week that Twitter's bubble burst. While NBA bloggers thought it was funny that Shaquille O'Neal Twittered, the Milwaukee Bucks found it very un-funny that Charlie Villanueva Tweeted during halftime of a big game with playoff implications. DC rapper Wale once got in trouble for Twittering during a UK radio interview, but this week, NY rapper Noreaga Twittered while performing on national television.
Last month, Diddy Tweeted while "having tantric sex"...and that's not even a euphemism for premature ejaculation. The Web 2.0 phenomenon has long been a joke among the Internuts, but on Tuesday it was discussed ad nauseam for 35 minutes on a kinda serious NPR segment. If I need to explain Twitter here, then the bubble might just burst in your face.
So the timing of Gringo Yank's "Twitter Rap" couldn't be more impeccable. With full disclosure, I did go to college with one of the Netherlands rap duo's stars, James Kirkland, but that doesn't make this video any less pertinent -- or funny. Unlike most hip-hop parodies, "Twitter Rap" isn't disrespecting or making fun of hip-hop, it's using rap as a means to disrespect and make fun of Twitter. While there's something to be desired in the rappers' cadences and their landing points among the production, there's too much punch in the punchlines and wit in their spit to really care all that much. Plus, the beat kind of bangs.
Unfortunately, there isn't a shout out to Twitter's most high-minded and loveably-genius meta commentary: where "Notorious BIG", despite being dead for over a decade, uses the social platform to discuss details of the "his" imagined days here still on earth "hittin' that drank, peepin american idol". But I'll make up my own shout here, one that fits snugly in Gringo Yank's chorus: "Twitter, Twitter/I'm still eating sardines for dinner."