Veteran The Onion writer Jean Teasdale describes Twitter in her latest opinion piece (emphasis mine):

It’s a free internet site where you can share a personal moment, crack wise, show a photo of a kitty, and beat people to caring about things that literally happened seconds ago, all in 140 characters or less.

This may be Jean Teasdale’s masterpiece.

While I’m praising Jean, I would be remiss if I did not link to her home page. The URL alone is genius.