Lip-service, a.k.a. "chirps from birds."*

The year is 2007. It was a national day of remembrance, and a day Curtis Jackson will certainly never forget. With bated breath, hip-hop fans awaited the official results, and people who bet on "at least 300,000 more units sold” probably felt like Miss Cleo, reincarnated. By the end of the first week, it was confirmed. The career of the most bulletproof rapper in hip-hop had been shot down by a former art student who loved to rap about his mommy.

Just a year before the historic album-release battle, Twitter was founded, and within two years of Kanye West’s historic victory, mobile phones and internet connections across the nation were accessing this online schoolyard. Everyone, and their best friend’s college roommate’s ex-girlfriend, tries to outwit each other with 140 characters worth of pure genius…or is it pure bullshit? It seems to me like many of the people who were forced to back up their big talk in the real world, now have the luxury of beefing up their prowess from the soft shoulder of the information super-highway. Party promoters can boost an event by guaranteeing it will sell out, and as they press send from their TweetDeck, a full stack of unsold tickets sits on their desk and continues to collect dust. Men and women who swear they keep it real fill timelines with posts about all the drama they aren’t about. Luckily, the person they are writing about has yet to create a Twitter account, so, there's no chance of getting caught and backing up all of the shit they’ve been talking.

Just like Fifty Cent tried to brush off his supremely embarrassing defeat by the Louis Vuitton Don, people use Twitter as a gimmick to beef up their social life and fend off any real-life self-doubt. I have no problem with self-esteem, nor do I have a problem with other people having high esteem of their @#&$#%^%@%#ing self. What I do have a problem with, however, is how our generation has become this pretentious and self-righteous group of naysayers and complainers. Everything is less than perfect, and nothing is worth bragging about, unless we or our friends are involved…and then, it’s the biggest accomplishment anyone this side of the Milky Way has ever witnessed. Everyone is stunting…by association. Every new Polo purchased is a pump of hot air into a head already filled up with its owner’s infallible opinion.

As always, you know who I blame: Hip-hop. Don’t get this twisted; I’m a lover of a perfect verse over a tight beat. But, I can’t stand to see men and women who haven’t seen half of life’s ups or downs exclaim that they’ve figured this thing out, and then proceed to tell the rest of us where our faults lie. Biggie told us that as long as we go from negative to positive, it’s all good. He didn’t talk about his diamonds and stretch Lexuses just for the sake of bragging and stunting on other people, but if you had holes in your zapatos you, too, would celebrate the minute you were having dough. Here’s the difference- you notice the man who runs the town hasn’t much time for blogging. He’s busy running businesses and jetting from country to country- he has no time for jogging your memory about how great his birthday party was last night.

I’m writing this because I think we still have a chance. We have the privilege of living in a world where access to information and opportunity can come at the click of a button. That is neither an excuse nor explanation for us to talk more and add more nonsense to the atmosphere. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Twitter caps us at 140 characters, do you? (Of course, someone found a way to Twitlonger.) You’re missing. The point. How about less talk, more using our heads now, huh? How about taking our eyes off of our keypads and putting them back on the #goal? You know, those things we aspired to before anyone even knew how to spell hashtag. Let’s step out of the limelight and stop advertising our accomplishments; instead we can be a person so consumed with and humbled by improving ourselves and others’ lives that people have to beg us for an interview. Let your track record, and not your trackball, do the talking. Then there will be no need to leave the spotlight just to come back and tell everyone you’re still the greatest. No, Hov did that so hopefully we won’t have to go through that.

*the dictionary definition of a "twitter"