Making Twitter and Holiday Shopping Better

Before its purchase by that Tesla guy, Twitter circulated this "meme quiz": 

"

The first thing that comes to mind when I hear “holiday shopping” is __________ because ________. What I get most excited for is ________, whereas __________ drives me bonkers. I’d think about getting some sort of tech product as a gift if _________, but not if ________. If I’m shopping for a tech gift, I’ll start by looking at ________. If I’m shopping for tech products from a wish-list, my first stop would be ________; if I have nothing to go on, I’ll look for tech gift inspiration on/in __________. Thinking about holiday shopping as a whole, Twitter helps make the process better by _________, but it’d be life-changing if I could use Twitter to _________ while shopping for the holidays.

"

1. Well...the first thing that comes to mind when I hear "holiday shopping" is "I'm glad nobody I know does much of it." A growing number of well-off Americans, especially "Bobo" types, have reached an agreement that Christmas is for charity. If people need money, it's better to give them cash than to buy things they may find it inconvenient to exchange. 

The exception is fast-growing children. Any time of year when you see friends' children's wrists or ankles sticking out is a good time to buy new clothes for children. The beginning of a new school term is a traditional time to give kids new clothes if you're just culling out what your own little darlings have outgrown. Otherwise, the only thing that makes Christmas special is that shops are always full of Christmas-theme wrapping, whereas at other times of year you might have to look for wrapping paper that reflects the child's interests on Zazzle. It's important to know the child: some kids like nothing better than to shop, perhaps first for "boring clothes" and then for books, toys, or videos as rewards, with their aunts, and some hate a crowded shopping mall even more than their elders do and would prefer a quiet walk to any amount of prezzies. 

2. Because shopping in between Thanksgiving and Christmas is such a mess. 

For North American Christians, at least, early winter is supposed to be a spiritual experience. There's Thanksgiving at the end of the normal growing season, and then Canada gets some Ordinary Time before the official Advent season starts, and then Christmas arrives. So we give thanks, and our churches don't usually specify a time for penitence as in the Jewish holidays but perhaps they should; anyway we have some weeks to prepare to celebrate the Incarnation of Christ. 

Of course Jesus was not born in December. His date of birth was deliberately obscured but, if He was born approximately six months after John the Baptist, at the time of a census taken prior to tax collection while shepherds were out in the fields with their flocks, it must have been closer to what is now Canadian Thanksgiving than to what is now Christmas Day. Partying around the time of the winter solstice was a tradition in Pagan sun-worshipping cults but is not recorded in the apostolic or early Christian church and was discouraged by the early Protestant reformers. It crept in from the traditional stories about St. Nicholas of Myra (the real saint was more interesting than Santa Claus is) and keeps creeping back, even among those who angrily reject Nicholas as a postbiblical saint and not to be trusted, because of the idea of giving. Missions that distribute food, clothes, etc., to people who need them, have a great need for donations in early winter. So people who know that the holly and ivy aren't Christian, as well as they know that "Santa Claus" is a little joke some adults enjoy playing on children, find ourselves singing "The Holly and the Ivy" and "Here Comes Santa Claus" and so on in aid of urban missions. Nostalgia raises funding. So does freezing cold weather. When Jesus was born, He and His Parents probably suffered more from sweat and flies than from frost and snow, but when raising money for people who may actually be temporarily homeless on snowy nights, few Christians quibble about the historically inaccurate image of the Holy Family being temporarily homeless "In the Bleak Midwinter" too.

I still think of the "holiday shopping" season as a time to ham it up in aid of the Salvation Army, before they sold out to the federal government. Ring those bells! Sound carries better in frosty air. Traditional carols usually sound better when performed by small groups but the weather in which other people tend to freeze out is the weather in which my voice can really soar...one of several ways in which my celiac genetic quirks function as super-powers.  People hit the stores with their holiday bonus packets and their shopping lists. One's mission is competing with selfish interests for the money left over from buying new clothes for children and tokens for friends, so it's a time to play shamelessly on their heart strings. Dig out every old traditional falsehood that stirs a memory. Sing whatever the crowd were listening to in Christmas seasons of their youth. In some neighborhoods Latin gets the big checks stuffed into the kettle; in some neighborhoods Hanukah songs do, or 1950s kitsch does. Think about children whose house burned down when somebody cranked up too many space heaters, and sing whatever works. You can get a 1980s banging back-beat with a Salvation Army bell if you need one. 

And faking is likely to be discovered and resented, but when I really was limping about with a stick as a result of walking to work in new "athletic" shoes, especially when ice was on the ground, was when the kettle filled up and I was collecting money in my hat. "Holiday shopping" crowds are scared of any condition that looks as if it might be contagious, including simple tiredness or a raspy voice from singing too long, but they love to ooze empathy over a simple injury that won't spread to them. They're so tired, they imagine that they can really relate to anyone leaning on a crutch! So if you do manage a strain, sprain, or fall while celebrating, by all means dedicate it to a respectable mission. 

How does this relate to Twitter? Unfortunately, it doesn't. Twitter is too new to be part of any real cultural tradition yet. The good news for Twitter is that, because "holiday shopping" is such a mess, people might turn to Twitter before they plunge into it. 

Before Twitter adopted that awful "filtering" idea, Twitter was a great place to tweet to friends, "What are you buying for whom? What would you like to get?" Twitter could have been very helpful in cases where the same child's multiple aunts and uncles all saw the sale on one toy the child might like, at the same store, and wanted to be sure they didn't ruin the toy by giving the kid half a dozen of it and nothing else. Now, of course, the algorithm that stuffs people's Twitter feeds with paid ads and tweets from commercial accounts, and blocks the "low-quality" tweets from their actual friends, makes Twitter unreliable for one of several purposes for which it ought to excel. Twitter should abandon filtering and make sure people see all the tweets from all the individuals they follow.

3. What I get most excited for is the family news, actually. After you start earning your own money and buying your own things, gift exchanges are more of a time of tedious obligations, noting things like "X got me a Y, I'll have to buy a Z for X" (and when I was younger some of the cousins seriously might have wanted a Z, as in car) and "X got me a Y, no doubt in the expectation of being invited to share it...how often?" 

The sort of thing oilmen's children used to expect at Christmas.

The sort of thing they might get: $33.99 at Wal-Mart.

4. The shameless commercialism drives me bonkers. I know a lot of stores desperately need to "get back in the black" and are hoping to do it on Thanksgiving Friday, but starting to push "Black Friday Sales" a week before Thanksgiving is tacky. Retailers should try to be a little bit calm about the hope, the thought, of money. 

5. I'd think about getting some sort of tech product as a gift if it were something the person wanted and could use. I'm not wild about video games, even if they do in fact count as training for a career in today's Army. I think kids learn more from real books than from "educational" games. I think most young people today need things that help them unplug from the Internet now and then, maintain contact with the real world, prepare to survive the crash of the computer fad. But if one of The Nephews needs a computer for school, well the father of some of them would be the one to build it, but I'd be happy to chip in. If they're going to use it for work or school, they should have a good one. And, once again, that's the kind of thing aunts and uncles could discuss on a revived, unfiltered Twitter.

6. I'd not think about getting some sort of tech product as a gift unless the person really wanted that particular thing. Tech companies were raking in the money while other companies languished before the COVID panic, so they should need the least help to recover. I'd much rather buy gifts from local crafters, or failing that locally owned stores, or failing that at least real-world gifts from the local Wal-Mart. 

7. If I'm shopping for a tech gift, I'll start by asking the local wizards at Compuworld what they have. I'd really prefer to take the recipient right into the store and make sure of getting the right thing.

Compuworld has increasingly specialized in HP gadgets, although they take all kinds of things in trade and can offer good prices on used non-HP stuff. They remember your tolerance for other brands. If, however, I was shopping for someone who obviously needed a new non-HP gadget that would work with what per school or office had, I'd look at Best Buy or Wal-Mart instead.

8.If I'm shopping for tech products from a wish-list, my first stop would be Amazon, of course, the Home of the Wish List. Amazon does not always, or even often, have the best prices on much of anything but books so it would be a place to see what someone's gadget of choice looked like and how much to try to avoid paying for it. 

Here let me say: I have an Amazon Wish List that may seem as long and unmanageable as the Big River Itself. It shows a wide range from new to antique books, from fantastic bargain prices to outrageous collector prices. For those friends who are not really familiar with Amazon, what youall need to know is that prices and availability change daily. During the last week someone tried to buy one of my books, reported that Amazon was out of copies, asked me to pick another book, and while I was picking found the original book back on the site at a better price. That sort of thing happens with the rarer books all the time. Books sold on Amazon are usually in no worse condition than the books in a well used public library, and I don't mind a few marginal notes or even dog-ears at all. I expect you to buy the cheapest printed copy available. Do not send me a Kindle copy if there's a printed copy. Hard or soft covers don't matter--get the best price.

But, about Twitter? Here is where Twitter can play a role in really helping stores market products to Twitter users. I've said many times that if we were willing to put up with the kind of clumsy, pushy, obnoxious advertising associated with commercial television, we wouldn't be online. There's a much better kind of advertising--when individuals, knowing that this is the kind of conversation that should be public, tweet to stores, "Do you have X product at the Y location? Can you get X by Tuesday?" and so on. Local friends and followers are going to see that and notice it. As long as it's not shoved at the customers, as long as a customer started the conversation and the store's social media person just answers the questions, Twitter can be a really useful part of the shopping process. Stores could tweet the countdowns, "We have 7 of these items at the Y location...6 as of 10 a.m...5 as of 3 p.m...we've ordered more and expect  them on Wednesday..." Twitter could get in on the action, offering clickable links with commissions for Twitter when a customer mentioned a product in a Twitter conversation.

9. If I have nothing to go on, I'd look for tech gift inspiration...not. I'd give the person a book.

10. Thinking about holiday shopping as a whole, Twitter helps make the process better by...It doesn't, currently. Or at least I don't trust it to. I keep checking my lists of Tweeps and seeing people who still use Twitter, but I've not seen their tweets in years. Twitter has to start by either losing the whole idea of "filtering," or else "filtering" only commercial tweets to make sure that only about one tweet in fifty comes from a corporation, and that includes news media. If, once again, people could be sure of seeing our friends' tweets in real time, then Twitter could really help simplify shopping and bring stores and products into social conversations without offending anyone.

11. It'd be life-changing if I could use Twitter to...Oh for pity's sake, Twitter, get real. Why would I want Twitter to be life-changing? I've already become a Christian and a wife and a widow. Twitter's role in my life is minor compared to the real life changes. 

It would be cool, though, if I could use Twitter to check prices, sales, and availability before I shopped, at any time of year. Instead of paging through different store sites before grocery shopping, for example, just get on Twitter and tweet to each local grocery store, "What's your price on Bush's pinto beans today?" Then other people might tweet the same question, or might just check the store's profile page and see the prices the stores had quoted earlier in the day, and they might want to tweet, "How many cans of those beans do you have left on the shelves?" I'm thinking of Bush's pinto beans because the last time I went into Food Lion they were running a sale on that particular item. Knowing Bush's reputation I was willing to gamble that those would be just last year's beans, not contaminated beans, and willing to buy them at the sale price. But when I was in the store, they'd run out of Bush's pinto beans and were selling Luck's pinto beans for the same inflated price as Bush's. Bah! I left the store with no beans at all. Everyday shoppers hate that kind of experience. Preventing it would be a real benefit to everyone, save lots of unnecessary driving and irritation, and it might bring stores enough focussed, satisfied customers that they'd be delighted to pay for the blue tick to prove that they were the actual account for that local store.