Bla bla bla bla bla. Guy travels to Memphis for a client meeting with FedEx, Twitters to the effect that he doesn’t like Memphis (specifically that he would ‘die’ if he had to live there). FedEx people see this, forward it around. Guy is likely in trouble now.
Two points:
1. I like Twitter, but it’s dangerous. In 160 bytes, you don’t have the space to say anything that’s at all nuanced. I have no doubt that most happy New Yorkers wouldn’t want to live in Memphis, as those two cities are very different places. Even the most die-hard Memphis partisan would likely readily agree that if good bagels, access to diners, walkability, etc., etc. are your priorities, New York is probably a better place to live than is Memphis. But you can’t get into any of the specifics of that — or the specifics of anything — on Twitter. This isn’t exactly a weakness of Twitter; it’s just that Twitter isn’t the right medium for some messages. Like nearly anything of substance.
2. People in most American cities can understand the benefits of living in New York, even if they themselves do not want to do so. New Yorkers would do well to attempt to understand that there are also benefits to not living in New York, and that many people prefer those benefits. As it is, a lot of New Yorkers — particularly people who have moved there from somewhere else — seem to believe that everyone everywhere else would move to New York if they weren’t somehow trapped elsewhere.
