Human Giant Live Twittering of Crank: High Voltage Sparks Outrage
Following up on yesterday’s post about displaying text messages on screen in theatres, the issue of texting and twittering during a movie has been brought up all over again thanks to a little event organized by the guys from the MTV comedy show Human Giant. It seems that they thought it would be fun to gather together a group of like-minded folks for a midnight screening of Crank: High Voltage at a theatre in Burbank, California last night, where they would use Twitter to discuss and mock the movie while watching it. Dubbing the idea “TwitFlix”, they made an effort to keep to the back of the theatre where the light from their cell phones wouldn’t disturb anyone else.
Here’s the thing: although no one in the theatre actually complained, the idea sparked a lot of angry responses from movie fans who read about it across Twitter and the blogosphere. People like Harry Knowles and Quint from Ain’t It Cool News felt that it was promoting disrespectful behaviour, and that it was violating the sanctity of the theatre experience. There’s also the whole issue of potential spoilers for the people following along at home. On the other hand, some people who attended the screening and did not take part in the Twitter chat reported that they didn’t even know it was going on. What do you think, is this kind of thing okay if it is done responsibly and in an organized manner? Or is it merely setting the stage for more widespread and uncontrolled cell phone use in movie theatres?
Comments (14)
That is a little surreal. People sitting in the same area of the theatre and communticated through Twitter? Bizarre. Although ‘no one complaining’ doesn’t neccesicarily mean it wasn’t disturbing and considering it was planned and they sat at the back.. that is considerate to a point.
But if you give an inch…
Posted by Shannon the Movie Moxie on April 17th, 2009I find a new reason why Twitter is retarded every day.
Posted by Goon on April 17th, 2009Goon, I fucking loath twitter. I don’t consider myself a ludite generally. But in this case it seems like someone’s invented a way to make acting retarded more efficient.
Does anyone know if it’s even possible to express a worthwhile thought via this abomination? Every time anyone brings up or points me in the direction of some twittering it’s something completely asinine that I’m dumber for having heard.
Posted by Rusty James on April 17th, 2009“Does anyone know if it’s even possible to express a worthwhile thought via this abomination?”
You must fucking hate haikus too.
Posted by Dave on April 17th, 2009If twitter was nothing but haikus, I’d be mildly interested. As it stands its like this…
actual blog posts and articles are like bread. Twitter are the breadcrumbs left on the plate. I don’t eat breadcrumbs, and if I really want to see short updates of what people are doing, Facebook already has this covered.
A friend of mine started a blog for her wedding. This makes me shudder with contempt and loathing. But I’d read that before I follow anything on twitter.
Posted by Goon on April 17th, 2009oh, and this CNN/Kutcher thing I keep hearing about? It’s all just about how many people can follow you, it has absolutely nothing to do about quality or usefulness of content. It may as well be Friendster.
Posted by Goon on April 17th, 2009I admit, I love Twitter. It’s a fun way to connect.
But, I don’t use it from mobile devices and would *never* do anything like that during a film screening.
Posted by Shannon the Movie Moxie on April 17th, 2009ohh god it doesnt help that I hate the guy with the fucked up teeth (seriously) and the guy from parks and recreation (as jay said..not FUNNY).
Posted by Trent on April 18th, 2009how could anyone hate Paul Scheer. Paul Scheer is awesome, easily the funniest of that group.
Posted by Goon on April 18th, 2009I use twitter and I kind of like it, but I hate when people text or anything in the theater. It’s so god damned annoying seeing the glowing screens out there, they really distract me from the film.
What really bothers me is how society can’t concentrate on what it currently going on and must turn to the internet all of the friggen time. I hate hanging out with people that are constantly checking twitter or whatever on their iphones. Why can’t you just enjoy where you are and what you are doing with the people you are with?
Posted by Paul on April 18th, 2009Look, any sort of internet social tech is ripe for abuse. For every blog you love (like this one), there are at least 10 that try to be like TMB and don’t even come close to that level of Epic Fail. The fact that you ignore them and don’t read does not mean they don’t exist.
I’m not the biggest fan of social websites myself, but Andrea uses them and when her brother died at the beginning of the year it was a great way for her to communicate with all the distant people wishing to share their condolences. Twitter is an easy way James and I can send messages to each other. He’s more likely to get a DM tweet on his cell phone than an e-mail and it’s far easier for me to type out a message on my keyboard than on the tiny QWERTY cell phone pad. It’s all about context.
My point is, hate the player, not the game.
Posted by Dave on April 18th, 2009“The fact that you ignore them and don’t read does not mean they don’t exist.”
I don’t ignore them. I think in general blogs are useless raving to nobody in particular. But they build real communities with real discussion about real things, and dont get hyped like Twitter currently is as some omniuseful tool which is really a means to give us such haikus as “The CD selection at Target is shit” – Twitter isnt sold as a useful tool, its being sold as something worth following and reading, and it just isn’t.
I take take all the bad blogs for the good because the good as that good. Even the people who i find most interesting, have nothing on Twitter worth reading. Any corporation or blog trying to cross promote with it is merely posting links to their blog of what they just wrote. Useless.
In summary:
Posted by Goon on April 18th, 2009http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5Ff2X_3P_4
let me put it this way. Say theres some marvelous invention that one person who you dont know about is using to possible cure some disease. But everyone you know is using this invention annoyingly and is very much in your face about it, constantly asking why you’re not also using it.. say you work in a place where everyone is constantly using this invention instead of getting things done, and when they’re not doing that, they’re talking about how the company could use this invention to make money.
I think you’d probably wish this invention didnt exist, and pretty much say ‘fuck the people with Disease X’.
Posted by Goon on April 18th, 2009This whole thing promotes Assholelism. I would have like this story more. If someone did get pissed. Grabbed on of thier phones and smashed it. It’s just annoying. I don’t use shitter or have a need to follow poeple. When you really think about. Do you really care when someone is going to a mall?
Posted by Hugo Van Nor on April 20th, 2009Leave a Reply