Conan Twitter Tracker

What is the Conan Twitter Tracker? No, it’s not a new book about a sword-wielding barbarian hunting tiny blue birds. It’s a surprisingly successful addition to late night comedy, in fact.

It surprises many that a comedian as young and current as Conan O’Brien, host of the Late Show, would choose one of the hottest trends in social media to be the butt of his jokes. But the first “Conan Twitter Tracker” segment did just that, first with Conan himself giving a “what’s the big deal?” monologue. When his blasé remarks were interrupted by an overwhelming monster truck rally-style voice, suddenly his monologue became a dialogue. The Twitter Tracker voice insisted that not only was Twitter a great thing, but the celebrity tweets that Conan was deriding were actually messages of the highest importance.

The voice punctuated all of the remarks with a series of elaborate motion graphics put over O’Brien, with images of the Twitter icon bluebird in more and more macabre situations. These started out with the bird simply sitting there on the screen, but as the bit went on, the birds were smashed, crushed, shattered, beheaded, or exploded in a flurry of feathers or a splatter of pinkish goo. In a later Twitter Tracker segment, a bird approaches with a bazooka and blows up the letters in an explosion worthy of a Schwarzenegger movie, and then finishes off with an innocuous chirp that even cracks up the host.

Another recurring feature of the Twitter Tracker voice is the use of clever (or not-so-clever) wordplay to continue to build up the hype. When Conan complains at being called “bro” by the voice, the resulting “Oh, Bro a No-No for Co-co?” became the headline for blogs and entertainment news sites covering the segment. “Don’t crap on the app!” was another rhyme, and the invention of little phrases such as “Twitter Virgin/Twitter Ho” was another big laugh for the audience (along with the inevitable “Oh, Ho a No-No for Co-co!” comment).

Of course, the root of the segment is not the service itself - though Twitter.com is hyped, it’s also acknowledged that the hype comes from sources outside the company itself. Instead it is a joke about the banality of some of the “celebrity” tweets - Jessica Simpson breaking a heel, for example, or Ashton Kutcher going to the grocery store for salad. The Twitter Tracker voice reads these with the impact of a movie preview voice, insisting over Conan’s objection again and again that these tweets have value. Even French politicians are quoted - though the voice does admit that it doesn’t actually speak French.

Whether Conan intended it or not, his segment has become one of the more popular parts of the show, and has returned for several segments, all of which are replayed on websites such as NBC or HULU. NBC has also given Twitter Tracker its own website, which features things like the “Tweet of the Week” (“I love sweet tarts” by @imdiddy, for example). Most telling of all is the fact that the Twitter Tracker also has his own Twitter feed (Tw1tterTracker) and has amassed over 17,000 followers. Substituting all-caps for shouting, the same overwhelming hyperbole slamming the tweets of celebrities goes on 24/7.

Given the proven real consequences, both good and bad, of using Twitter - from political careers being ruined through leaks to breaking news of current events to fighting terrorists in Mumbai - it may be a bit disingenuous for Conan to continue to insist that Twitter doesn’t matter. As Rachel Sklar puts it in the Huffington Post: “…it exists, it generates a ton of content, it implicates all types of people, and it has nuances that are important to get right.

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