Political Humor #philgoffevil

Written By: - Date published: 3:45 pm, March 23rd, 2011 - 20 comments
Categories: humour, interweb, Politics - Tags:

Rob Carr over at Political Dumpground has provided me with my third glimpse at why twitter can be useful*.

Melissa Lee took a swipe at Phil Goff for wearing a red tie to the memorial service for the Christchurch Earthquake as apparently this was politicising it. Ignoring the fact that it was essentially a political function (which most of the country was shut out of and didn’t really know what was going on) it was a stupid remark to make which has put her again in the history books. The colours of Cantebury are red and black and so that is exactly what he wore along with no doubt half the people there.

This has spawned the #philgoffevil hashtag on twitter which has got some very funny tweets so far including:

Ok, I’m going to just do a few of my favorites because I’m sure that Rob would appreciate the traffic for the rest.

  • Greg Presland: You can almost spell Gollum from all of the letters in Goff’s full name #philgoffevil
  • Spud D: Phil Goff was in Christchurch when the earthquake struck. Coincidence? I think not! #philgoffevil
  • ImperatorFish: Why does he wear pants? What is he trying to hide from us? #philgoffevil
  • General Woundwort: Phil Goff dyes his hair grey as not to give away he is immortal from drinking the blood of freshly squeezed maui dolphins. #philgoffevil
  • LewStoddart: Andrew Little emerges as a challenger to Goff, then Lyttelton struck by quakes. Can you not see what is before your very eyes? #philgoffevil

Rob’s favorite is

acemcwicked: If you take away all of the letters of ‘Phil Goff’ and add some different ones, but less of them, you get ‘Satan’#philgoffevil Labour can always rely on Melissa Lee to increase their publicity.

And Phil Goff’s contribution was a bit staid, but at least got into the spirit of it (and it has Ben Clark lurking there as well)

* Yep, I’m an skeptic when it comes to some technologies. After you’ve seen your first hundred or so of “killer app like Lotus 123”# turn up, flare for a while and then disappear, you learn to be skeptical of investing too much effort into them (especially if they have the word Microsoft associated with them). For the last couple of decades in the computer industry, I find a actual use for them first and only then will I invest some effort into them. I found the twitter feed in google useful for seeing what was happening in the Assange stuff last year, and for the Japanese earthquake this year.

# And that statement on its own should tell you how long I’ve seen them happening.

20 comments on “Political Humor #philgoffevil ”

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  1. Lanthanide 1
    23 March 2011 at 4:34 pm

    Twitter seems good for celebrities who want to get news out or interact more directly with their fans. Also good for marketing companies trying to hype new products. Finally good for keeping up to date on fast-moving events, particularly if you want on-the-ground coverage.

    Otherwise, waste of space.

    • lprent 1.1
      23 March 2011 at 4:41 pm

      Pretty much what my conclusion is. The first two are not useful as far as I’m concerned. The last one I’m looking at. But I do find it repeats a lot. The links are what makes it interesting in google but it needs a filter to remove repeated links. When I have a reason to use it next time I’ll have a look around for a feeder that does that.

    • felix 1.2
      23 March 2011 at 7:08 pm

      I disagree Lanth, I find twitter hardly takes up any space at all.

      Now if you want to waste some TIME, on the other hand…. 😉

  2. Pascal's bookie 2
    23 March 2011 at 4:54 pm

    But the twitter did just turn five which is a pretty long lasting flare.

    Kyle Stephenson, from Stevenage, became the 300 millionth human to puke his brains out via the site, adding: “Hpy bday 2 Twitter! Jst totally LOLed at ths kittin pic! Mum sed Im ‘semilitirit’. WFT?”

    • lprent 2.1
      23 March 2011 at 5:26 pm

      Yeah, but I usually find that the 7-8 year mark is the one to watch with software. It usually takes between 2 and 3 years to go from crap to usable and to build up an sizable group of users. They slide along for a few years scaling up the business. Which is when they often fail because that is when they find the flaw in the business model .

      Then one of a few things happens. They cash up and the new owners kill it. They try to do a grandiose version x and it is over hyped and/or requires systems that won’t exist in the market for another 5 years and/or makes the UI unusable and/or they take 10 times as long to produce as they expected and/or a competitor builds a clone and without the legacy code and business systems it is better and/or they hype it to shareholder and investors too much and when one of the preceding happens they all cut their losses and/or etc. Or they start to feature add to the point that it is unusable. Or they waste their capital trying to repeat the success with another product.

      After 7-8 years the system is has either successfully extended into the future or it chugs along for a few years slowly dying.

      I look at things when they come out and decide if I can use them. I early adopt if they help with something I need (google search for instance was far better than Alta Vista) or the organisation has a long track records of producing things that work (Apple for instance).

      • Lanthanide 2.1.1
        23 March 2011 at 6:25 pm

        Doing new version x, or making UI unusable are two things that don’t apply as much to online applications. One of twitter’s “core competencies” would be the simple (but powerful) UI.

        It could easily go under if sold, or be feature-creeped to death; the latter being a big threat to Facebook.

      • sukie damson 2.1.2
        23 March 2011 at 6:40 pm

        So are you saying there is still time to be the 300,000,001st early adopter?

        • lprent 2.1.2.1
          23 March 2011 at 7:00 pm

          🙂 Actually I thought I was saying that I either adopt very early if I can find a direct use when I first look at something OR I tend to wait for more than 7 years before I start thinking that there might be something there after all – ie a late adopter.

          Twitter for me is in the latter class. I have only found one use for it so far, and that was from a different app (google) making it useful.

  3. mickysavage 3
    23 March 2011 at 6:54 pm

    I used to think twitter pretty naff but I gave it a go coincidentally on the day of the second Christchurch Earthquake and was amazed at the flood of tweets that came in. One of the first had a link to a photo of the cathedral.

    Ever since then if there is breaking news I check out Twitter. It feels a bit like the Matrix scene where Tank watches the feed …

  4. KINTO 4
    23 March 2011 at 7:08 pm

    How does one use the twitter to read the other hash tags?

    • felix 4.1
      23 March 2011 at 7:11 pm

      It’s part of the search function. Just type the hashtag (with or without the “#”) into the search box.

  5. Phil Lyth 5
    23 March 2011 at 7:42 pm

    Try this from the House yesterday:

    @leesgallowaymp: Simon Bridges just called out ‘is that a red tie?’ Melissa Lee turned around and told him off. #nzqt #philgoffevil

  6. Phil Lyth 6
    23 March 2011 at 7:43 pm

    But the killer tweet on #philgoffevil is this from:

    @philgoff: Politicising Korea Day posing for a photo with Labour MPs and candidates. #philgoffevil http://t.co/CDBN451

    Take that Melissa Lee!

  7. Scott 7
    23 March 2011 at 8:16 pm

    I was slow to come to Twitter, but I now think it’s a great form of social media. It’s a good way to connect with people in an instant, and when there’s a big event breaking it’s always on Twitter first.

    I have had Twitter exchanges with journalists and politicians that I would never otherwise be able to communicate with in any meaningful way.

    There’s plenty of rubbish on Twitter too, but the easiest way to avoid reading someone else’s rubbish is to not follow boring people.

    BTW, the #philgoffevil hashtag was my creation. My vast ego requires this to be known to the world.

    • lprent 7.1
      23 March 2011 at 8:34 pm

      Congrats Scott, that hashtag did provide a second reason for twitter.

      But I’m arrogant enough that I prefer my own company and live a irreconcilably happily antisocial life, except when Lyn, family or friends force me to be social. Going on social media sounds more like a duty without obligation.

      I only got involved here (a sort of social media) because of the usual reason – a friend wanted my skills and was prepared to ask.

  8. Lew 8
    24 March 2011 at 8:36 am

    Not directly part of #philgoffevil, but the following by @covlin gets my vote for the best: “I can’t believe Russel Norman politicised St Patricks Day yesterday by wearing green.”

    L

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