This is a snapshot of Twitter. Take some time and observe it.

Notice all of the languages, mishmashed side by side.  I like this a lot. Much of what I see of the rest of the world is through the news.  Sometimes I travel, and its great.  But seeing this snapshot affects me in a similar way as reading a fiction or seeing a film from another country. It feels more personal, it feels like I’m getting closer to the heart of another culture, and I feel my perspective widen.

Some of these tweets convey so much more than the tweet itself. Its like when you people watch and someone, just by their look, can evoke an entire narrative.

At any given moment, you can get a stream of 1% of all tweets.   I’m used to seeing tweets either in my feed online, or processed in some form to make cool info graphics.  When I opened up these tweets to take a look, the first few I saw were in Japanese.  I didn’t expect that at first- who would? I’m so used to seeing the web in English.  I moved further and continued to see tweets raw, unprocessed, full of characters and languages I didn’t know.  And the tweets I did recognize juxtaposed an array of emotions and styles.

A collective poem, growing, spanning the world.