Jonathan Franzen: ‘Twitter Is Unspeakably Irritating’

By Jason Boog 

Once again, Jonathan Franzen has generated online headlines by making dismissive comments about our online activities. Author Jami Attenberg saw Franzen speak at a Tulane event last night, copying down a few quotes about social networking.

Here is a Franzen quote from the post: “Twitter is unspeakably irritating. Twitter stands for everything I oppose…it’s hard to cite facts or create an argument in 140 characters…it’s like if Kafka had decided to make a video semaphoring The Metamorphosis. Or it’s like writing a novel without the letter ‘P’…It’s the ultimate irresponsible medium … People I care about are readers…particularly serious readers and writers, these are my people. And we do not like to yak about ourselves.”

The quotes have spawned a new Twitter hashtag this morning: #JonathanFranzenHates. How would you argue against his comments?