WHAT would you do if the city handed you a megaphone and told its people to listen?
Would you use the power to promote good — as Vernon Smith, 41, from the Inwood section of Manhattan, insisted he would — informing residents of snarled subway lines and reminding them not to smoke in public parks?
Would you use it to promote food, as Rachel Bennett, 25, from Greenpoint, Brooklyn, would? She said she would chronicle her adventures in veganism.
Would you use it at all? Christopher Young, 42, from Downtown Brooklyn, said it was “narcissistic” to think anyone would care what he had to say. He added, of his modesty, “Not all New Yorkers are like that.”
Indeed.
Last week, The New York Times reported on Sweden’s national Twitter feed, @Sweden, a government initiative that entrusts a different citizen with the account every seven days. Its entries have been, at turns, profound and profane, touching on subjects that include masturbation, the foreign secretary’s job performance and boys who think they are zombies.
