Twitter is a fast-moving and vibrant service where millions of people post interesting links. Twitter is also a monstrously oppressive collection of stylistic and linguistic conventions, a stifling humor sweatshop endlessly enslaved to itself.
The site's rule-bound nature is so complete that, to a new user, the behavior of its most popular and active users is inscrutable bordering on insane. Even its jokes are form-obsessed, the social media equivalent of homophonic puns. Without the context of Twitter they would seem like the stream-of-consciousness ramblings of an insane person, or the unsorted output of a computer becoming sentient for the first time.
Which is why Jay-Z's Twitter, which sprang awake today after months of relative dormancy, is so refreshing. It proudly flouts convention, not in the stiflingly knowing way that Twitter power users so often try, but without any awareness at all. And why should he be aware? Why should Jay-Z care about retweet conventions? About Twitter quotes? About Twitter at all? He's Jay-Z. He can reply how he wants, post how he wants, and tweet however he wants. But, I mean, you can too? Anyway:
People who spend a lot of time on Twitter are ASTOUNDED by how STRANGE this is, but come out looking much stranger themselves. And profoundly uncreative! A famous rapper who doesn't care about Twitter just logged in and invented a better Twitter in, like, five minutes. We should be embarrassed! Ashamed!
Lastly, definitive proof that Jay-Z is better at Twitter than we are:
He knows when to take a break.