This idea [of concise communication] certainly isn’t new. How about the book of Proverbs? “When words are many, sin is not absent, / but he who holds his tongue is wise” (10:19). At seventy-eight characters, including spaces and punctuation, eminently tweetable. What about memorable speeches? We don’t remember the whole speech. But the short quotes are bite-sized, so they stick. “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country” (seventy-nine characters). Long? No. Meaningful? Yes. Or how about song lyrics? “I have run, I have crawled, I have scaled these city walls, only to be with you. But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”—128 characters. Tweet it, baby.
This highly lauded poem by William Carlos Williams could be tweeted with 51 characters to spare:
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
Or this Japanese Haiku:
old pond . . .
a frog leaps in
water’s sound
Simple. Beautiful. Tweet-worthy.