William Gibson on Why He Loves Twitter

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/09/vulture_transcript_william_gib.html

by adambyrtek • 16 years ago

57 23 16 years ago

nymag.com

kyleniemeyer2• 16 years ago

i love reading interviews with william gibson- particularly his take on the tea party movement in this one.

deutronium• 16 years ago

You might like this http://www.dshed.net/william-gibson

It's a talk he gave on his new book Zero History. I found it really cool hearing his opinions on how fast technology is advancing.

kyleniemeyer2• 16 years ago

thanks! I hadn't seen that before

mgunes• 16 years ago

Here he is talking to Richard Metzger (Twitter comes up too): http://vimeo.com/14918761

orangecat• 16 years ago

"The tea party is a bunch of racists" is not an especially original, insightful, or accurate take.

euroclydon• 16 years ago

It is effective though.

mkramlich2• 16 years ago

he didn't say they all were. just implied that a significant subset were, at least in part. and I think based on the documented evidence any reasonable person would say that's accurate.

irq• 16 years ago

The title does the contents a disservice - his views on global culture are far more interesting and make up a much larger bulk of the article than why he loves twitter.

nikster• 16 years ago

I agree - but his view on Twitter is pretty interesting as well, namely the fact that Twitter is countless parallel groups and cultures that have little or nothing to do with each other.

I am using Twitter to follow friends - though, sadly, most of them don't use it anymore - and as a news aggregator. For the latter, it's brilliant. Following William Gibson now.

Qz3• 16 years ago

I actively disliked Twitter, but I've started using it recently solely for an online collaborative competiton I'm involved with (not programming/HN related). It's fairly useable for that since signing up is very easy, but there are plenty of times when a basic chat room would be better.

RtodaAV• 16 years ago

Sorry but twitter is way to ghetto.

Gianteye2• 16 years ago

I had no idea William Gibson was so insightful and urbane. I suppose I might have read Necromancer without any appreciation of how early it came in the timeline of cyberpunk literature, but I was never able to get into it.

After reading this interview, I feel pretty compelled to give Zero History a look.

LiveTheDream• 16 years ago

Neuromancer?

Gianteye2• 16 years ago

Oh my yes. Where's my head at. Neuromancer.

mblakele• 16 years ago

Gibson does seem like a rewarding conversationalist. I wish I liked his last book more than I did. Everything Gibson said in this interview was interesting and worthwhile. But I found Spook Country mediocre and I am unlikely to read Zero History. I'm trying to come to grips with that. On the surface, I can say that I found it much easier to empathize with Chia or Cayce than with Holly.

My best distillation so far is that he used to write about people, technologies, and their relationships, with some peripheral stuff about brands. Now he writes about brands - and people and technologies have become a means to that end. Also the brands used to be fictional, which helped avoid the Spook Country feeling of reading some company's ad copy. Perhaps as a result of the emphasis on brands, his character are less sympathetic. They have always been out of control of their own lives, but they used to try to take control now and then. In Spook Country they seemed more abject, victims of forces far beyond their ken or control. I have no doubt that he has a valid point of view, and he is somewhat upfront about that shift, in this interview. But his interests no longer match mine.

psawaya• 16 years ago

There's also the William Gibson documentary, No Maps for These Territories. It's very conversational, actually mostly just him talking. You can find it on Youtube.

brudgers• 16 years ago

I read Zero History over the Thanksgiving holiday (it was on the new arrivals shelf at the library).

Because it is set in the present, I wouldn't call it "cyberpunk," but it is thought provoking in many of the same ways as Neuromancer. The writing style is better developed and more coherent though less cutting edge(all as one would expect after more than twenty years). It's a solid read.

mkramlich2• 16 years ago

I loved Gibson's remarks about the Tea Party. I think he nailed at least a part of why it exists and got so many folks into it.

ps. Please fix the "Unknown or expired link" quirk when submitting comments on HN. So counter-intuitive.

Qz3• 16 years ago

And that’s why somebody phones in after every bomb and says, “It was us, the Situationist Liberation Army. We blew up that mall.” That’s branding.

gwern• 16 years ago

But they don't. I did a whole comment there pointing to the statistics about how most bombs are unclaimed, hours ago.

Qz3• 16 years ago

Point is, you remember the ones who called in to claim them.

defen• 16 years ago

William Gibson is an insightful observer of social trends and a fantastic writer, but I was a little disappointed to see that politically he is a pretty standard liberal transnational elitist.

avk• 16 years ago

I asked William Gibson if I could help with the fact that following 87 people is more than he can take in (http://twitter.com/#!/artvankilmer/status/9127501972381696).

Just wanted to extend that offer to everyone here as well. I too have the overload problem and am passionate about the value of Twitter, which is why I'm building something that will help. Happy to share & discuss further: http://slipstre.am/

William Gibson on Why He Loves Twitter

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