On Thursday, August 6th, 2009, from 9:04 AM until 11:42 AM Eastern Standard Time, the largest social networking site in the world, Twitter, experienced an outage that prevented its millions of users from reaching its servers.
In that short period of time, in less than three hours, tragedy struck. Mobs gnashed their teeth and rioted until order could be restored. There were tears and there was anger. Bargains with the devil were struck and pleas to heaven could be heard worldwide.
In those one hundred and fifty six crucial minutes . . .
. . . 1,400,329 people had nobody to which they could tell “Good morning, all!”
. . . 98,603 people missed a chance to share something cute their child just did.
. . . 116 people cried for attention with a fake claim of suicide, but nobody could hear them, so they decided life was worth living.
. . . 845,033 people tried to send a message asking if Twitter was broken.
. . . 77,136 people were unable to get any feedback on whether they should have pancakes or a breakfast burrito.
. . . 100,009 people had to rant silently about someone stupid standing in front of them in line.
. . . 26,784 people had to actually concentrate on driving.
. . . 1,000 people weren’t able to share the experience of the oral sex they were receiving at that exact moment and had to actually enjoy the experience instead.
. . . 2,948,303 people took a photo that they couldn’t share, and they took this time to realize that it was a mundane photo that nobody would have actually cared about anyway.
. . . 41,377 people picked up a book.
. . . 42,480 people picked up a crack pipe.
. . . 19 personal assistants to celebrities breathed a sigh of relief that they were unable to share their employers’ inane statements with the Internet.
. . . 82,256 self-titled social media experts contemplated suicide because if they couldn’t market through Twitter their whole business plan was defunct.
. . . 4,000 of them actually went through with it.
. . . 13,144 people were listening to music but had nobody to tell about it.
. . . 108,036 people had to use instant messenger programs to hold private conversations
. . . 3,499,102 people had no way for people to find out about their new blog posts, well, except through feedreaders.
. . . 220,876 people didn’t get paid for their obnoxious sponsored tweets
. . . 18,331,578 people called up a friend and told them what someone on TV said because they had a compelling urge to retweet something, anything, no matter how mundane.
. . . 144 people didn’t even notice, but they felt a burden lift from their shoulders.
. . . 1 person took that time to write a not-really-that-witty post about what people did when Twitter was down.
Enjoy this post? Try these:A cat named Twitter
Twitter: Who should you follow?
I read blogs!
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@Miss Britt, I know, because I kept begging you to work!
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tweet tweet!
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@Del, so you just said that out loud instead of using Twitter?
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@Avitable, tweet?
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I faced down my ugly Internet obsession.
Also, I did some work.
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@Maria, an Internet obsession is a beautiful thing.
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I thought it was extremely twitty..er witty!
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@Jenn, that’s twitterific!
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Twitter: kimt205
says:
I got a bunch of stuff accomplished at my house !! Finally !! I figured out how to use a pressure washer and and edger all by myself !! Yay me !
But I must digress, I am guilty of #1. And sick and tired of #2 !!
Twitter should break more often. I would get so much more done.
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@kim, if Twitter broke, how would we know about everyone’s meals and bowel movements?
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I contemplated calling you.
Then nature called and I sat on the throne and read a magazine instead.
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@Redneck Mommy, you can call me from the throne. We have that type of friendship.
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Twitter: Amanda234
says:
Man I’m glad I was at work where I don’t have access to twitter so I didn’t have to experience this tragedy. I noticed more people picked up their crack pipes than a book, which seems accurate.
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@Amanda, yeah, I think crack > books in today’s world.
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Twitter: AngellaD
says:
1 person read this post and wish that she had thought to write it herself, due to its sheer brilliance.
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@Angella, I’m sure you would have done a better job with it than I did.
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Twitter: Pgoodness
says:
1 person kept tweeting, but used her blog instead of twitter.
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@Pgoodness, I see that!
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Twitter: VerdantDude
says:
Since it came back from the dead, does that mean it is now Zombie Twitter?
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@B.E. Earl, yes. And it absorbs everyone’s brains.
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I think today was the most productive day in the universe since Twitter was borned.
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@Kris, very likely, well, unless you’re a social media expert.
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I was sleeping, cause I was on CA time…
Damn, you are on a roll…so many good posts in one week. I wish I was that witty.
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@Julie @ Angry Julie Monday, it ebbs and flows with me.
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1 person would have never known if for not reading this post.
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@Mik, I’m glad that I can educate as well as entertain.
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Twitter: karensugarpants
says:
haha i didn’t even notice until anissa facebooked it. i was ass-deep in auto wrecker jargon for a client. my life is so frikking interesting, doncha know.
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@Karen Sugarpants, apparently she’s addicted if she was facebooking it!
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I thought I’d get lyrics to a song to the tune of “American Pie”, but reading these statistics to that tune is *very* difficult. Instead I am now stuck with an “American Pie” earworm. It’s going to be stuck to me all night. I hope you’re happy.
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@harmzie, I drove Twitter to the shitter and shouted out why.
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@Avitable,
Well played. I had just gotten rid of that fucking earworm. At least now I have more words to sing. Keep going…
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Twitter: http://whall.org/blog
says:
What’s a twitter?
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@whall, apparently a qwitter.
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Twitter: Blogography
says:
No interview with John Hughes? I was really looking forward to that…
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@Dave2, hopefully tomorrow.
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I was sleeping. Too bad i missed it. Now I’ll never know what group I was in
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@bluepaintred, hm, that’s a good question, actually.
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twitter was down?
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@ed, and out.
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Twitter broke? I must have been outside at the time.
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@Leanne, outside? What’s that?
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Twitter: hellohahanarf
says:
i didn’t mind at all that twitter was down.
what does bother me is that i can’t have my dancing avitable video any damn time i want it. someone better fix that shit. and by someone, i mean you.
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@hello haha narf, it is fixed – just click on it. It’s just hosted on another site now.
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1 person (me) didn’t really care ’cause I never got sucked into the tweeting/facebook insanity. I imagine work production was way up during those 156 minutes. I am happy that all the tweeting/facebook junkies got their fix restored. Hard to believe we only had a rotary telephone and letter writing to communicate with only a few short decades ago, huh?
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@MB, and had to walk to school up hill both ways in the snow while barefoot?
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Twitter: Kapgar
says:
I love your “by the numbers” posts. This one and the BlogHer one rank amongst my favorite posts by you ever. I dunno why. I hope you’re okay with that.
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@kapgar, I think I can handle that. They’re fun to do.
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Terribly truncated Twitter tasks tweeters. Tsk Tsk.
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@avatgardener, terrifically terse! Ta ta.
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Twitter: hismuse
says:
Correction…2.
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@Robin, oh, so you’re trying to say I’m not witty, eh?
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Amen! I am glad Twitter dying made them do this for at least ONE day!
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@Hilly, if only they had learned their lesson . . .
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Twitter: Whatsananna
says:
What I found sad was that only 1,000 people were enjoying oral sex at the time. Is that worldwide? Regionally?
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@Nanna, out of the geeks who use Twitter.
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Witty enough for me…I missed the whole thing, so I’m glad to know what I missed…
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@Karen MEG, I’m a fount of information.
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Twitter: Faiqa
says:
Hehehehe, Tariq hates twitter. He refers to is as “destructive technology.” I finally see what he means thanks to your post.
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@Faiqa, people hate that which they do not comprehend.
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Well, I drove my Chevy to the Levy but the Levy was dry.
awesome post!
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@marymac, “Well, I saw Twitter hit the shitter and I screamed out why”.
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I was watching my son race a boat made out junk he and his friends found on the beach.
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@always home and uncool, that’s better than watching your son play with his junk on the beach, which is what I read the first time I skimmed this comment.
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Or was I shooting smack? Hmmm.
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I was doing what I always do, pulling my son down off the counter, table, tv and walls while answering, “Mom, Why….?” from the other one. And explaining to the largest that he’s a grown ass man, I’m busy, if he wants breakfast MAKE IT! (seriously, every day…)
All of that, of course, explains why I broke out the crack pipe.
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@thepsychobabble, of course. Crack is the only solution.
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Twitter was down?
I think I was behind one of those twittering drivers, but sadly, they still don’t know how to drive.
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@Sybil Law, then they had to text everyone while they drove just to tell them that Twitter is out.
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Reminded me of those Sprint (Pre?) commercials. Those have just about ruined the comedy of these numeric lists for me.
Someone must have an American Pie lyrics version of this somewhere… @whall?
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@Ren, I know – you’d think Wayne would be on top of this.
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Twitter: kristabella
says:
1 person may have constantly updated her Gchat status like she was updating Twitter.
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@Kristabella, ooh, that is a sign of addiction.
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I watched a soap opera. A frickin’ soap opera!!! A more brain-melting activity I cannot think of!
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@Nenette, yeah, you should have just stared at the blank Twitter screen.
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Strangely enough, the more I hear about Twitter, the less I want to join. I think I’ll enjoy turning into a cranky old man instead.
“Hey, you kids, get off my lawn.”
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@Grant, that is exactly what you’re becoming!
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It wouldn’t be funny if it wasn’t true.
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@Badass Geek, that’s always the best humor right there.
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one person has never twitted in her whole life…and wouldn’t know what the hell a twitter was if she tripped over it.
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@CP, join the younger generation, old lady!
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Sorry, I didn’t notice. I was too busy putting up pictures on my Geocities page.
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@Jeff, oh yeah, good old Geocities. I had one of those!
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Twitter: momofali
says:
I curled up in the fetal position and sucked my thumb.
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@Momo Fali, next time you need something to put in your mouth, let me know.
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You forgot all the porn girls who won’t be followed back, and all of the auto-responding tweets hoping that we’ll “keep in touch” that didn’t go out. Cruel fate!
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@abdpbt, poor little auto-responders, floundering around all by their lonesomes!
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Twitter: nycwatchdog
says:
Actually it was 145 people who failed to notice but felt a burden lifted.
I count as two dontcha know.
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@NYCWD, says who?
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Twitter: nycwatchdog
, August 10th, 2009: 10:19 PM
@Avitable, My ego.
It’s HUGE!!!
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Twitter: themuskrat
says:
It was awful. I need twitter. Like the flowers need the rain.
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@muskrat, like asses need cocks.
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I slept! And then went straight to my sons doctors appointment. I can’t tweet when out anymore anyway!
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@Sarcastica, you can’t text anymore?
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Twitter: mrlady
says:
Twitter was down?
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@Mr Lady, what type of internet whore are you?
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Twitter: perpstu
says:
One person actually got some work done while Twitter was down. I can’t remember the last time I was that productive!
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@perpstu, it would have been nice had I gotten anything done, but I didn’t. Except for a post.
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Twitter: alimartell
says:
I didn’t even know it was down…I just thought I had broken my new iphone
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@ali, do you have a new number, too?
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i am actually glad it was twitter, I thought my brand new iphone was broken and was starting to get upset that I would have to take the damn thing back. I was feeling really stabby about the whole thing, then not so stabby when I realized it was not my phone.
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@mountainmomma18, but did you get to stab anyone? That’s the important question.
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Twitter: Barking_Mad
says:
I was forced to do laundry and actually go downstairs and speak with my oldest daughter rather than tweeting her. At least when we’re tweeting I am not hit in the face with the realization that it smelled like my daughter had just brushed her teeth with garlic.
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@Audrey at Barking Mad, at least you weren’t hit in the face with the realization that she doesn’t wipe her ass well enough.
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Twitter: Tara_R
says:
Twitter was down? The things I miss when I have real stuff to do.
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@Tara R., Twitter’s not real?
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Thank God for the 4000 social media experts that actually went through with it!
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@Wendy, that’s what I thought.
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You got me with the 42,000 who picked up a crack pipe. Priceless!
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@Selma, I only share the truth.
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I was one of the 144 that didn’t notice until I read your post… guess I’m one of the few that doesn’t have full access to twitter while at work.
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@Fantastagirl, that makes you a lucky one.
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Twitter: poppycede
says:
…and thousands of security analysts were tasked with figuring out WHAT THE FUCK had happened to a service that used to be down on a regular basis. It was BIG news for the geeks.
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@Poppy, I never looked into it – was it just a DOS?
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Twitter: poppycede
, August 10th, 2009: 6:47 PM
@Avitable, it is sometimes difficult for me to know when you’re kidding. This story was alllllllll over the news, still is!
You know about John Hughes, right?
And it was actually a DDoS, but yes.
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@Poppy, oops. DDoS. I don’t watch the news in any way, so I have no idea.
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One person remembered friend feed and got a partial high so withdrawal symptoms were minimal . OH and plurk (or plucked or whatever it is called) too and got mad karma points for plurking their heart out.
The day that twitter died, so did half the internet world…and what was better the next day thousands of blogs went down due to McLinky, it was the Social Media Recession. I wondered how quickly Social Media would follow in the steps of our crappy economy. Thanks for another daily laugh
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@Toni, I don’t use Friendfeed. And Plurk is still around?
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@Avitable, You know I am not real sure about plurk, I did use it for like a week or two but gave it up.
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@Toni, the interface was pretty shitty.
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This was great and scarily close to the actual truth.
I still can’t access the Twitter mobile site from my phone.
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@martymankins, I think they’re still recovering.
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