If you thought the obsessive minutiae of microblogging was annoying, wait until it hits the small screen. Variety reports that Twitter has been in talks with Reveille and Brillstein Entertainment, the same production company that launched TV hits “Ugly Betty” and “The Office,” to create a program based on the Web service. The show has been described as “putting ordinary people on the trail of celebrities in a revolutionary competitive format.” Sounds like the glorification of stalking to me.
According to the Twitter blog, Twitter has chatted with other media execs regarding television programs, but the project that’s getting the headlines has resulted in “a lightweight, non-exclusive, agreement with the producers which helps them move forward more freely.” This likely means that Twitter won’t be hands-on with the project, and, hopefully, the show won’t be entirely based on a service that’s appropriately being called a fad.
Twitter has had some success with television previously, namely its Hack the Debate program during the 2008 election. Hack the Debate allowed Tweeters to post thoughts and ideas about unfolding debate action in real-time, lending the program an interactive feel. CNN also borrows heavily from the service.
Details are scant about what a Twitter TV show would look like, and, for the life of me, I can’t stretch my imagination around how it could possibly be entertaining. I’m hoping the massive waves of negative attention this project is getting will convince producers that America is not, and may never be, ready for a television show based on sharing idiotic details about one’s life. We already had Seinfeld.