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Don’t get me wrong: I love the Internet and what it has done for freedom of information and freedom of expression. No human invention has advanced the species more.*

But the downside of freedom is, of course, that it’s freedom for everyone. That is a downside on Twitter in particular, where the 140-character limit does away with the need—or indeed the space—for nuance.

Case in point: a recent discussion with an activist I got entangled in, after I tweeted this about the Eurovision Song Contest:

This fairly innocuous—though chauvinist—statement, intended to convey that in my opinion, Conchita’s victory was political and moral, not artistic and musical, lead to the dialogue below, which annoyed me at some points, infuriated me once or twice, had me shaking my head almost constantly, but finally managed to make me laugh out loud.

It started with an eeep.

However much I tried to parse this message into something meaningful, it just left me confused. When in doubt, ask. Who knows? The tweeter might even be willing to explain himself. So the next day, I opened a dialogue.

He turned out to indeed be willing, though the explanation still left something to be desired.

Of course I did suspect by this time what he was really trying to say. Seeing as how he was wrong on all counts, I countered with:

A vast** and meaningful silence ensued.

There is hope for humanity, I say, in a world where even animal rights activists are willing—though not particularly able—to argue Conchita’s cause for her!

* The wheel? Pfah! Don’t talk to me about the wheel! As for fire: sashimi conclusively proves fire’s utter insignificance.

** In Twitter terms, of course, anything over five minutes is “vast”.