• by OMMA Magazine Writers , March 2, 2009

You'd think Brazilians would be laid back and really chill. Well, Reader, you'd be wrong. But, right now, Ed:Blog won't get into our run-in with a band of wild-eyed Brazilians last month at the Shorty Awards for top Twitterers - synchronously timed just when the online media cauldron bubbled over with debate over mysterious plans the service might or might not have to start charging commercial users.

The crowd-chatter before the show was a veritable dissertation in inanity, though. The words "tweet," "Twitter," "twit" and other infuriatingly cutsey lingo were uttered so often as to make one think he was lost in an endless tape loop of "Rockin' Robin" playing at variable speeds. The nascent media platform might have officially hit the wall for self-refracted absurdist irony when the show's Twitter feed was projected onto a screen. Many of the people posting were in the room, of course, and most of the tweets had to do with Twitter, or specifically self-examination of said tweets. Sample post: "Ha Ha, my tweet is on the screen at Shorty. That's funny." Welcome to a world where the news cycle is about 20 seconds long and you are the top story.

The naval gaze lifted once the show actually started and host Rick Sanchez from cnn (who is known for using Twitter on-air) took the stage. He told the Twittering Class, "You are my sources; you are my reporters; you are my assignment editors." Then about halfway through, he was surreally supplanted by mc Hammer (@mchammer) who presented the remainder of the awards, the first of which was in the music category and went to Hunter Burgan, the bassist from afi.

Now about those rabid Brazilians - a tv crew set up in Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn filming the action on the stage. When our intrepid society reporter, the Social Medium, accidentally stepped in front of the cameraman he gave her quite the tongue-lashing, Reader, saying things we can't print in a family magazine. Editor Mandese has graciously offered to defend her honor, so Brazilians, you had better hope he doesn't find you.