Having some Twitter toon time

Hundreds of twitter followers enjoyed cartoon day yesterday and turned their virtual selves over to an avatar of a cartoon character.
The idea was the toony brainchild of Dick Dastardly but quickly spread as individual twitterers passed on the request. It wasn’t long before a Flickr group was set up to capture some of the avatars for posterity.
From Manchester to the States, tweets sprung forth from the mouths of avatars as diverse as the Man Eating Cow, Dr Strangelove, and even Carwash from Will ‘o the Wisp.
But what was the point of it all?
Stockholm based MarkMedia was one of those to take part. As well as being fun, he said it showed how a meme could achieve traction if just one or two people pushed for it, showing just what a powerful PR tool social media could be.
In all the exercise probably doesn’t stand up to much detailed scrutiny, although the character selection did prove to be an insight into the way normally pretty sane people view themselves.
For my part, I enjoyed part of the day as Olive Oyl in recognition of my foodie status and was even feeling a little sad at giving her up today – while at the same time not wishing to think too hard about any underlying reason for it!
I did fail in my ambition to see number the 10 Downing Street twitter stream turn into a character from barbapapa (perhaps “aw shut up, you bilge rat!” would have been more persuasive).
The point of having a bit of Friday fun is probably akin to the point of flash mobbing. As one of the Manchester flash mobbers once put so succinctly (with capital feeling): “the WHOLE point of flash mob is there is no point to make, no political stance, no axes to grind… All you kill joys wanting to ruin what was a Top Laugh, Totally meaningless and the main point some people forget, FUN.”