Cate Owen

July 5, 2013

Best Tweets: June 2013

This month is bought to you by @DanRockNZ, so any of you that follow him would expect this to have a heavy sport and beer focus… but no!

There is however a fair bit of X Factor involved…

X Factor
@Hilary_Barry Oh hurry up – we picked our kids names quicker than this #xfactornz
@josephmoore1 Rosita Vai on backup!!! Also: Michael Murphy is the X Factor janitor and Ben Lummis drives the #xfactornz contestant bus.
@toryhipster Please can crimping not be a thing I don’t think I can live through this #xfactornz
@pinkdeedle I like to think Ruby’s lady garden is pink and crimped with glitter. #xfactornz
@cam667 Covering a cover, of a cover. #XFactorInception #XFactorNZ

Stay Classy NZ
@AniOBrien The chef on 24 Hours In A&E who accidentally stabbed himself is kinda sexy.
@NathanWinter75 I’m addicted to wanking puns..hopefully I can beat it..touch wood. #toosoon
@kaanivorous Got my onesie today. It’s a bit snug in the crotch. Can’t really put my hood on.
@DramaQueenNZ Embarrassing! I just tried putting my hair in a scrunchy only to find it was DiLs gstring! Either I need glasses or she needs bigger panties

Addicted much?
@simon_w I’m getting a massage and tweeting with my nose!
@lucymk Just seen a picture of Macds Hashbrowns on Instagram. Hashtagged. #HASHtagged. My life is complete.

The female of the species
@wendypooh Remind me again how I get smelly girl pit stink out of my tops?
@ohsarahrose Panicked that I’d left my glasses at home. Then realised I could see so um I hadn’t.
@SiobhanKeoghNZ I consider myself an intelligent, articulate woman, right up until the point that I see a puppy in my peripheral vision.
@melhomer If electric blankets could put the bins out and tell us we’re beautiful, we wouldn’t need men. Fact.

Parents are the best contraception
@JaneYee 5.15am start to the day. Who designed these little creatures?
@pinkdeedle Kids are pretty much just grubby, money taking alarm clocks.

Just Because it’s true
@runningwhio The problem I think is that we keep saying things like ‘the country needs your opinion’. I’ve read the comments. It really fucking doesn’t.

And my winner is @runningwhio – because if you’ve actually read the comments, you’re going to need a drink! Don’t forget to follow @OldMoutCider for your treat.

Regards,

Daniel Rock

June 8, 2013June 8, 2013

Best Tweets: May 2013

Compiled by Moata Tamaira

It’s hard to believe that there was a time when we weren’t all tweeting the mother-loving tartan out of The X Factor yet it was only in May that this guilty pleasure was birthed unto a breathless (and sarky) nation. And while it wasn’t officially winter, there wasn’t much in it.

It’s cold so we’re starting our winter eating early
BrenaSmith It’s just me who licks the inside of maggi gravy packets right?
Jaiemem Love is having a Ferrero Rocher unwrapped for you because you’re too lazy to do it yourself.
Beanbiz GCSB? Pah! Mighty River Power? Pfft! Solid Energy job losses? Buh. They’re bringing back PIES?!?! Ding ding ding!!! #trending #NZ
APConlan Having Georgie Pie now will be like finally getting together with the pretty girl from high school who now has syphilis.

Central heating and weaponry. So much more to librarianship than you thought.
CherylBernstein “Mum, when I’m in Year 6 I think I’ll aim to be a school librarian rather than a crossing guard. The library’s really well heated.”
Paulbrislen Saw a policeman at Welly airport who was shorter and skinnier than me. Looked like a librarian. A librarian with a Glock

Two sides of the same helpdesk coin?
AristotlesNZ Hi. We noticed you Googled “How do I keep IT from seeing my browser history” yesterday at 3:21pm. How’d that work out for you?
_surlymermaid I would punch a nun in the face for a gin and tonic and an IT support team not made up of smug men

I can’t figure out if Twitter makes X Factor better or the other way round
Crabbs Disappointed in the song choices, #xfactornz. Was hoping for at least one rendition of ‘Groinal Screwdriver Punch’ by Head Like A Hole.
Officialfunning He does a good Every Pakeha Dad, I’ll give him that #tom #xfactornz
RobynGallagher It’s like a dream – if the dream is hanging out on a tropical island with a hyperactive man dressed like a tablecloth. #xfactornz
MartynPepperell I wish #XFactorNZ was a series of auditions for new mutants to join the X-Men.
DanielsTrousers Dan’s secret mentor trick is making the girls put me on & walk down Queen St. When they no longer feel shame, they’re ready. #xfactornz
neilmullanefinn I think it is possible to be funny without being cruel but x factor does make it harder.

Parenthood. It’s not a word. It’s a sentence.
DamianChristie You know you’re a Dad when you point out the car window and yell “digger!” even when your son’s not with you. Taxi driver appreciated it tho
LewStoddart Anyone who wants to argue that kid’s TV is not educational is invited to talk about dinosaurs with my two preschoolers for 3 or 4 hours.
Lucymk 3yo: Mum! A pukey cow! It’s a pukey cow!! Me: What?? Where? 3yo: LOOK a pukey cow! *shows toy* Me: … OH! THAT’s a kiwi – not a pukeko 🙂
Hilary_Barry Tried to remember it was the thought that counted when son gave me a Xmas card for Mother’s Day yesterday and wrote Happy Birthday inside.

Miscellaneous tweets of delight
LukeAppley Remember, if you’re going out today and you get stuck, cut open your Tauntaun and sleep inside it for warmth
Petrajane ‘Harry’ is a remarkably accurate portrayal of Auckland, in that you can’t go 5min without seeing someone who used to be on Shortland Street.
TimWilsonBarrio Business idea: ‘The Hipster Bible’… featuring only the chapters which reference beards.
Vegrandis I’m sure food at a 5 star Michelin resturant is good but I know nothing will taste as good as the sad tears of your ex’s current partner.
Tarquin_Death Googling “find my google doc” is embarrassing. Tempted to use Bing so Google doesn’t judge me
Kebabette Word is there is a new #chch Roller Derby team called “The Gilmore Girls”. Their uniform is a fucktard.

This month’s tweet of the month ultimate cagefight winner is… _surlymermaid because we’ve all been there, am I right? I know it’s not a gin and tonic but hopefully you’ll enjoy your Old Mout Cider enough that no further nuns need be pummelled.

Many thanks to everyone who favourited and nominated their favourite tweets. Sorry if I didn’t pick your one, they were all pretty awesome.

Many thanks to Cate for letting me play Tweet-Factor judge for this month.

@moatatamaira

May 9, 2013May 9, 2013

When Bank meets Banksy: BNZ launches Story Art

As part of the 2013 BNZ Literary Awards, sponsor BNZ have come up with a novel way to promote the short story competition they’ve been running for a few years now.

The competition, in which writers create tiny 150 word masterpieces, lends itself perfectly to social media platforms – everyone has a Facebook friend who posts status updates longer than that! (If you can’t think of one, chances are it’s you.)

Given that social platforms are becoming more image-based (think Pinterest and Instagram!), it’s pretty ingenious that the bank have created an app that turns the short stories into art, to be shared back to the platforms.

It may just be the quirky and fun incentive needed to get people out of their shells and writing. After all, it’s not every day your writing becomes art.

I especially appreciate the time taken by the BNZ to create this word art out of a particularly intelligent tweet of mine.

Have a play here: www.bnzstoryart.co.nz

And if you’re looking for some tips on getting started: http://www.bnz.co.nz/static/www/docs/la/2013-BNZLA-Graeme-Beattie-SSS-writing-tips.pdf

Oh, and before you think I was clever when I came up with that title; Nope! That’s all on Tarquin_Death.

May 2, 2013May 2, 2013

Best Tweets: April 2013

Compiled by Tara Sutherland

We demanded a lot of April and boy, did April deliver!

Some of us would be more than happy for the summer to continue however we needed rain and then it rained. We found out what channel number Parliament TV was and we continued to take the piss out of each other and the cities that we live in.

Just another day in New Zealand … we’re staying classy as always
@georgie_pienz – I hear mr whippy. He should really sell “grown up” treats. Like whiskey. Then i’d be tempted to run outside.
@annaliesvk – Just had the Renegade Master song in my head as I walked the wrong way through the express check out to get to the wine.
@littlemisspie – I can hear @AlexMC183 Skype chirping, @5hameless, he’s gone to the bathroom.
@meganbedford – Dinner happened after I’d tried on my new black icebreaker thermals top & leggings and pranced around pretending to be a mime
@hungryandfrozen – So glad I remembered I had those candy hearts, got quite close to eating the leftover sugar pills in an empty Pill packet I found in my bag.
@littlemisspie – My idea of being a well balanced person is liking both red and white wine.
@infovorematt – Pxted mum my test + assignment results now she’s proudly showing the ladies at work and suddenly I’m 5 w/ gold stars again.
@kirstigrant – My Grandad just asked me to run out to the letterbox to fetch him his paper. Apparently “that’s what little kids like to do”. And I did it…

Mike Hosking – Perfect Tweets
@cakeburger – saw some suspicious types by SPQR avoided them had caviar and dill on focaccia life is perfect #TweetLikeHosking
@cherylbernstein – Backed over a peasant today Maserati fine Foie gras in glovebox Life is perfect #TweetLikeHosking
@MikePerfectHosk – Really looking forward to putting my feet up later and enjoying a Peroni. Wouldn’t it be perfect if Peroni was Italian for perfect?
@mikehoskingzb – So now I am so famous and important Someone has parodied my twitter account Life is perfect #TweetLikeHosking
@eliterate – Sniggering just a little too much over #TweetLikeHosking gems; snorted Pinot out my nose. Life is perfect.
@liamdann – …thinking of starting LiamDann parody account so I can feel more important. Do most people do their own or do you hire Pead PR or someone?

Marriage Equality
@jessetheridge – When you realise how many firsts our Parliament has had, with people from all walks of life, it actually makes you proud to be a Kiwi.
@HORansome – Will “Parliament TV” get a second season? How will they top this episode? Hope tonight isn’t a cliffhanger? #marriageequalitynz
@beckeleven – I’ve never been so rude while out for dinner. Kept checking phone for gay stuff and retro plastic TradeMe bids. Both so important. Won both
@cateowen – “Where were you when gay marriage became legal?” “On my couch, in the dark, in my undies, grooving to elevator music, and tweeting.” “Cool!”
@kiwi_chatter – The gay community would never destroy our social fabric, they would take that fabric and make something fabulous.
@cmranapia – Confident prediction: This time tomorrow nobody will have proposed to their pets or random farm animals. NOBODY. #marriageequalitynz
@nightwyrm – Wife’s going to make me eat something involving feta. It took less than 24hrs for my traditional marriage to be affected. #slipperyslope
@thecomedywife – TIME TO PLAN MY GAY CRIME WAVE. Mummy needs a new flat screen…

It should be called New Zealand Monopoly!
@bekitty – You narrowly avoid being hit by a bus because you looked the wrong way when crossing Molesworth St. Miss a turn. #WellingtonMonopolyCards
@realericyoung – Bank error in your favour. Westpac pays you $10 million #AucklandMonopolyCards
@kiwimrsmac – Your central Auckland villa is cold, uninsulated, with polished Kauri floors. Sell it for $1.5million and roll again #AucklandMonopolyCards
@greerberry – You buy a property in Pinehaven and claim it’s ‘Middle Hutt’. Gain $200 #WellingtonMonopolyCards
@kerry_mcbride – You order an RTD while in a craft beer bar. Get kicked out of Wellington forever. #WellingtonMonopolyCards
@theegonomist – Take a helicopter ride to Coatsville! The owner must pay you $20000. Roll again because this ‘never happened’ #AucklandMonopolyCards

And in other news ….
@h_yd_n – I’ve found my lactose intolerance extends to news about milk.
@matt_gibb – Drove by the Victoria St @TelecomNZ store and saw a guy inside so assumed it was open. It wasn’t. It was a cardboard cutout of me. Sassed.
@beekayNZ – My Anzac biscuits are way better than my Hot Cross Buns #observancebaking
@dancapper – In leiu of dawn service this year, I just made my own “morning reveille”. The cat left the room.
@irihapeta – 14yo always happy to see me home from work. Only cos I take the xBox cord with me each day. #schoolholidays #getoutsideforachange

And the winner this week … D4 Damager, power to the people is … AnnaliesVK … get your strut on girl!

This was so much fun to compile! Thank you Cate for giving me the TOTM reins, to those that favourite good tweets and to Old Mout for the prize.

Xxx @tarasutherland

April 4, 2013April 4, 2013

Best Tweets: March 2013

Compiled by Anna Connell

March, and winter is coming. Fortunately for us funny tweeting is under consideration as a sport in both the Winter and Summer Olympics so there was no shortage of material. Census, attempts to alter the space time continuum, Popey smoke and another round of evidence that if nothing else, New Zealand is 100% pure class.

Keep it classy New Zealand
annettle Experiment, for funsies: Can I still get my big toe in my mouth? (Yes!)
‏guywilliamsguy Great to see that Nelson Library still subscribes to FHM magazine.
Wordgirlwriting Need to go get food, but society is all hung up about how I should wear pants when I leave the house.
fuck_lupus I’m 30 and I can’t even find my tits anymore. I could be sitting on them.
Tarasutherland Cabbage rolls. Delicious! Bet I’m going to fart like a brass band all day tomorrow though
Kiwi_Chatter At the ‘Shore to Shore’ fun run. Looks like most North Shore mums have dressed up as ‘Camel-toe Woman’.
ShakefieldCasey That awkward moment when you thought you had nail polish remover & paint a guys nails as a joke annnnd you don’t
Virginiafrankov #urbanlivingdilemma the bathroom door has locked itself shut. do i still drink my full glass of coke?
PolarBearFarm Casually strolling through the motor camp in a tux.

We stood up, got counted, and tweeted ourselves into a stupor in the process
TroyRF I can hold a conservation in Latin about everyday things if they include slaves, Greek merchants, and the eruption of Vesuvius. #census
Yakmoose when filling out your census form.. no one cares that you can speak klingon.
CasualLex Can I Facebook connect this or something and skip filling half the form? #census
Simonemccallum Two vital questions the #Census2013 didn’t ask: (1) Apple or Android (2) Marmite or Vegemite. Could make a big difference to funding choices
Vaughndavis #census tip: make sure you’ve stopped crying about the relationship status question before you start crying about the income question
Unstatusfactory If you’ve been on minimum wage for the last 6 months, you should write in “exploitation” as the main activity of your employer. #census
radiomum How can it take a census to discover my husband and I do not share the same religion?
brendonRS Drinking chamomile & spiced apple tea, with honey to sweeten. Wondering if I should revise my answer to the age question.

We tried to dispense wisdom from the future
CateOwen Almost every #tweetyour16yearoldself by a woman: “He’s a jerk”. Almost every #tweetyour16yearoldself by a man: “Here’s how you get girls”.
Rose_Matafeo you’re not going to get any cooler, I’m so sorry #tweetyour16yearoldself
_jjw_ Don’t ever forget about Dre #tweetyour16yearoldself
dmc_21 #tweetyour16yearoldself Go to Georgie Pie and buy as many pies as you can afford and buy the biggest freezer you can find. Repeat heaps.
Damianchristie Don’t worry, you won’t go blind. Have fun, champ. #tweetyoursixteenyearoldself

The painfully obvious but very astute observation
Manikpixi There is nothing more painful to watch than a 13 year old boy when the internet is down.

Special smoke got in our eyes
L_To The new pope looks 100. Nice succession planning Catholics.
MrAaronHawkins Blue Smoke and we get a Maori Pope

If you know me, you know why this is here but it’s also a very valid point
TophHooperton If a man can’t lip-synch to Celine in the street with arms out and eyes closed in full fake-belt, then what are we fighting for?

This month’s tweet of the month goes to fuck_lupus because word sister. Make sure you’re following Old Mout Cider to collect your prize!

Thanks to Cate for letting me do this and to the people who use the ‘favourite’ function on Twitter to save the funnies and not because they hope brainy boys will look at it and think you’re brainy too. (Seriously, mine are a boring embarrassment). Enjoy the cider and thanks Old Mout.

March 22, 2013

First look at The X Factor NZ

Take a first look at the brand new X Factor NZ ads, rolling out today!

Melanie Blatt

Stan Walker

Ruby Frost

Daniel Bedingfield

I am really excited to be working on this show – I think it’s going to be huge!

March 19, 2013March 19, 2013

Review: Cantina at the Auckland Arts Festival

Cantina is scary, funny, mind-bending and beautiful.

Described as “a spectacularly dark and dangerous cocktail of circus”, it’s cabaret featuring characters who titillate and at the same time, frighten; Acts of stupidity or bravery, depending on how you look at them; And people who make you laugh, and a heartbeat later, gasp.

The men are breathtakingly handsome, full of roguish, flirty charm, and the women live comfortably flowing between doe-eyed innocence and all out sadism – what else would you expect in a world where walking a tightrope in high heels is all in a day’s work.

I recommend you catch it as part of the Auckland Arts Festival, currently on in Auckland.

Tickets are $65 and the show runs til Sunday.
Contains full nudity and simulated violence.

March 17, 2013September 10, 2013

Personal branding on social media

In Twitter’s earlier days, we used to tweet about things that, although safe for work, were a little on the naughty side. One person would tweet something slightly dodgy, and another would tweet back “there goes your brand!”

Yes, I know, we were hilarious.

But there was a grain of truth to those tweets, which is why so many high-profile social media people in NZ are now upping their Facebook privacy settings, retreating to locked Twitter accounts, and taking old YouTube clips down.

There’s a cultural issue in New Zealand around what we expect of heavy digital users – and you’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. I’m talking about taking charge of your digital profiles: Branding YOU and making sure what you present is the way you want it.

The other day, social media consultant Courtney Lambert published this blog about online personal branding. In a nutshell, while the concept of personal branding is widely accepted and expected internationally, in New Zealand it’s often looked upon with derision or suspicion: Personal branding is for celebrities, and if you think you’re a celebrity, then you’re a dick.

Here’s the rub: If you are online, you need to take care of how you appear online regardless of your [lack of] celebrity status. You need to take ownership of your actions, know your boundaries, and have a bit of a plan – you can bet potential employers, lovers, and friends are googling you if they want to know more!

Nothing is secret, really. Trolls can be found, workplaces googled, last names attached to first names on seemingly anon Twitter accounts. If you’re doing something online that would make you embarrassed offline, you probably shouldn’t be doing it!

Transparency issues aside, New Zealanders tend to have a problem with Kiwis saying they’re good at something, let alone able to offer advice to others. We have performance anxiety. We don’t like tall poppies. We like to think we live in a society without classes, despite making fun of “white trash”, “westies”, “people from Gore”, or “dole bludgers”. We also tend to think that if someone’s putting themselves out there and trying to build a profile for themselves, then they are “asking for it” or “deserve everything they get”.

Yet we don’t think the same way about Americans, or Brits, or Canadians, or Scots. We nod enthusiastically and gobble up their wisdom. It’s the old “expert from out of town” syndrome.

The other issue is the way we think about each other in relation to where we work, to our jobs, and how much accountability or personal opinion comes from that. Where is the personal/professional boundary? Sure, we are not our workplaces, but how much of how we behave online is a reflection on our ability to do our jobs?

Some New Zealanders assume that because someone works somewhere they:

Love and support everything their workplace does,
Hate and deride everything their work’s competitors do,
Are massively biased because of their job,
Must behave to a certain standard because of where they work, regardless of what crap people throw at them. I’ve seen trolls bait people, trying to get a response so they can run off to that person’s employer. But it’s not just trolls running off to employers – I’ve heard about a NZ company approaching someone’s employer over a tweet about a bad product/service.

Please note, the rules don’t apply to those who are calling others out on them. That would be hypocritical.

There is a thorny issue in there – can you publicly talk about things your work’s competitors are up to that you like? Would you go on the radio and say that? Or is it a case of knowing what “good” looks like, and simply acknowledging it? Keep in mind, it sometimes makes the national paper when workers from one company congratulate their workplace’s competitors via social media.

As a country, we’ve got some growing up to do.

Owning yourname.co.nz or .com is commonsense in this day and age. Having a blog for your thoughts, opinions, and digital curation is a good thing. Positioning yourself as helpful or knowledgeable about an area where you’re educated and/or experienced is not uppity, it’s fact – and good business sense!

It’s time to think about this stuff, or find yourself overtaken by people who are.

March 9, 2013March 9, 2013

Five reasons why hashtag hijacking is bad marketing

Those of you who regularly use Twitter (or Instagram, or Pinterest, etc) will be familiar with hashtags. For those who aren’t, a hashtag is a way of grouping similar tweets or photos – like a tag. When enough of them happen in a short amount of time, that tag starts to trend.

Why anyone would choose to hijack a trending topic for their unrelated business is beyond me.

Reason 1: It’s not about reach anymore
If you’re going to market your company via Twitter, put your old rulebook away. It’s not all about reach and frequency on social media, it’s about finding the right audience and connecting with them in meaningful and helpful ways.

Reason 2: You look like you don’t understand hashtags/the platform/your audience
You know those #people #who #hashtag #every #word so the tags become nearly meaningless? Or those mindless bots who tweet rubbish just to get their URL onto the top trending topics? They’re pretty much the lowest rung of Twitter users, due to their abuse of tags, and if you do it, you’ll be right down there with them.

Reason 3: You’re being rude
If you don’t respect the community, it won’t respect you. Imagine a group of friends at a party. Rather than participating in the conversation, you interject and start talking about your company. That’s what you’re doing when you hijack a hashtag. It’s not cheeky, or funny, or cute… It’s rude.

Reason 4: Spam is spam
Sure, spam has a click through rate good enough to justify spammers going at it, but no respectable business should be spamming people on ANY platform. You’re sending unsolicited commercial messages in an electronic format to an unrelated hashtag where a group of people will be unable to avoid it; Sounds a lot like something that could be covered under the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act of 2007, if you think about it.

Reason 5: It can damage your business
If you don’t know why the topic is trending, or abuse the tag regardless, you can irrevocably damage your business. There are heaps of examples of this floating around. Here’s one: Just after the Aurora shooting in the US, Celeb Boutique sent this out.

You can read more about it here.

As I said: Why would anyone would choose to hijack a trending topic for their unrelated business?