The Impact of Twitter on Society with Biz Stone

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (0:02)
Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.
I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. And here's my intrepid co-host, Eugene Mirman. Eugene, thanks for being back on StarTalk.

**Eugene Mirman** (0:24)
It is great to be back.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (0:25)
Excellent, excellent. So you're still doing stand up around town?

**Eugene Mirman** (0:28)
Still doing stand up around town.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (0:29)
Now you're seated, you're doing sit down here.

**Eugene Mirman** (0:31)
Right now, for this, yes. But normally I would stand, because I'm a gentleman.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (0:36)
So we're featuring my interview with Biz Stone. First, that's just an awesome name.

**Eugene Mirman** (0:42)
Yeah.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (0:42)
So it didn't matter what he did in life. That's just an awesome.

**Eugene Mirman** (0:45)
Yes, he could easily transition to pornography, no problem.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (0:49)
Exactly. So he's one of the co-founders of Twitter.

**Eugene Mirman** (0:53)
Oh.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (0:53)
Twitter has a huge impact on society, not only in social media, but also in it's moving entire cultures to communicate as one. And I don't want to have that conversation about culture and social media without getting some expertise. Alondra Nelson, welcome back to StarTalk.
We've had you before. Excellent. And so you're professor of...

**Alondra Nelson** (1:19)
Sociology.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (1:20)
Of sociology up at Columbia University. So we'd be coming back to you many times in this conversation. Because social media is a sociological phenomenon.
And you share common word roots there.

**Alondra Nelson** (1:30)
Absolutely.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (1:31)
So just be ready for this. And not only that, Clive Thompson, welcome to StarTalk.

**Clive Thompson** (1:36)
Good to be here.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (1:37)
So Clive, you're a journalist with the New York Times.

**Clive Thompson** (1:39)
New York Times Magazine and Wired Magazine.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (1:41)
And Wired Magazine and how long have you been, you're a professional journalist.

**Clive Thompson** (1:46)
Yeah, I've been writing about social media and the internet for about 20 years now. Really since it sort of became the internet.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (1:51)
Yeah, I didn't know it was that 20 years ago. So what the hell were you writing about 20 years ago?

**Clive Thompson** (1:55)
Email, email, email.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (1:57)
I am the lone person on earth with an email account. I will be a professor on this. I will be the head of that division of the New York Times.

**Eugene Mirman** (2:05)
And another thing about Netscape.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (2:10)
And so we're talking about Twitter. I tweet, I tweet under Neil Tyson. You tweet at Eugene Mirman. And you tweet?

**Alondra Nelson** (2:17)
At Alondra.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (2:17)
There are no other Alondras?

**Alondra Nelson** (2:19)
No, it's like Madonna, Shakira.
There's more Alondras. I just got there first. Which matters on Twitter, huh?

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (2:30)
And you tweet?

**Clive Thompson** (2:31)
At Pomeranian 99
Yeah, I know. There's a story behind that.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (2:36)
So that sounded like you were a late adopter for that Twitter handle.

**Clive Thompson** (2:40)
Actually, what happened is I got Pomeranian 99 in 1999, when I signed up for AOL Instant Messenger.
And there's a complicated story behind why I like Pomeranians, but I do. And it was 1999, so there you go.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (2:52)
Wow, and so we're gonna take advice from you in this conversation. Are the Pomeranians the really crazy, cute dogs?

**Clive Thompson** (3:01)
Yeah, they're little, they look like burnt marshmallows. They're these fluffy little things.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (3:05)
They're completely cute. Because if I were a wolf and I saw that dog walk by, I would just be so disappointed with humans that they turned my DNA into that.

**Clive Thompson** (3:14)
Yeah, they serve no function, but I don't know, right?

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (3:19)
So Alondra, this is technology arising that enables people to communicate without actually being with one another.

**Alondra Nelson** (3:26)
Yes.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (3:26)
And not even seeing one another.
Is this good or bad? You're a sociologist. You care about interaction.

**Alondra Nelson** (3:33)
I don't know if, I think the answer is it's social, right? So it's people interacting with one another. What's also interesting about Twitter is that you can follow someone without them following you. It doesn't, unlike Facebook, it doesn't have to be reciprocal. So it opens up all sorts of interesting asymmetries and the way that people relate to one another.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (3:51)
And you're cool with that.

**Eugene Mirman** (3:52)
It would be terrible to follow all the people that follow you on Twitter. Because then you'd have to see a lot of stuff about their food.