Well now, Twitter!

So this morning an apparent gunman held Princeton University’s campus hostage. And by held hostage I mean caused campus security to put all staff, students, parents, etc. on lockdown, and scare the crap out of them with emergency phonecalls/emails.

This would not have been a big deal for me except for two minor facts. One, my friend, with whom we were walking around downtown Princeton, has a husband who works on campus, and two, since downtown Princeton is practically the university’s campus, we weren’t sure whether walking around downtown today was really advisable. To be on the safe side, we went to her house and started checking the web to find out what might be going on. (Incidentally, much baby cuteness ensued between Z and my friend’s nine-month-old. They gave each other kisses and hugs. Then fought over a pacifier. Need I say more?)

Looking for info on Princeton’s own web site: nothing. Nothing, that is, except for a non-committal and fairly well-hidden emergency notification (which now just explains the incident and gives you campus security tips like how to secure your laptop or be paranoid and report suspicious activities, like an apparent gunman).

Asking google: nothing.

But Twitter? Ah yes. A gunman on campus! A gunman on campus! Tweeted the tweeters. So okay, this wasn’t very informative either, until a few minutes later people started tweeting that the university has issued an all-clear, there is no gunman, just four kids with a toy gun. A green plastic toy gun. (A good thing that linked NBC news site includes some lovely pictures of fake soldiers in fake gas masks and fake buildings on fire on the same page as this news story. Might as well try to make fakeness into real news, right? Myself, I can’t help but be morbid. I think people kinda sorta hoped something might actually be happening in this sleepy college town. Not so anyone’s hurt or even inconvenienced, of course, but… well, you know how everyone likes to feel important. Or just be on the news. Didn’t quite work out, that! Instead we were all on Twitter.)