Simon Owen at Blogasm alerted me to the newest profession,  If you thought professional blogger was pushing things, consider professional twitterer.  Simon points to this blurb in the SkyMall magazine, the one everybody reads when crushing boredom overcomes good judgment in the steerage seats of an airplane.

In 2007, SkyMall embarked on an aggressive marketing campaign that drove up its Web sales. In January, SkyMall ventured into social networking territory, hiring an official corporate Twitterer.

What distinguishes this twitterer is not merely the pseudonymous assistance, but that it’s the “official corporate” one.  This, of course, means that there is an Executive Vice President of Twittering, who answered to the Senior Executive Vice President of Twittering.  While it’s conceivable that there is a Twitter Divisional President, that seems silly.  Who would have a division dedicated to twits?

Aside from the fact that everybody who’s anybody is now on twitter, because it is the thing to do for all the really cool kids (and grandmothers, and corporations, and politicians, and nobodies), the fact that corporations have official twitterers, sitting there every day, all day long, twitting the company line is just pathetic.  You can’t help but smile, if not laugh out loud, at the idea of some card-carrying member of the Slackoisie punching promos at 140 characters a shot onto a keyboard all day long.

Of course, now that every very busy celebrity is busily empowering his or her fan base to follow their moments of transitory embarrassment on twitter, the potential of a full-blown profession of twitterers is coming to fruition.  I mean, seriously, how can Lindsay Lohan find the time to get drunk and still twit about her love life?  And all the time Britney spends at the auto repair shop must take her focus off twitter momentarily.  Ashton, on the other hand, appears to multi-task well, plus it’s hard to let your twitter assistant enjoy a view of wife Demi when he’s supposed to be a serious professional twitterer.

The rush to join in the newest, coolest thing around has its downside.  It takes time and, despite the compulsion to be involved, doesn’t actually serve any purpose beyond racking up followers and making sure you aren’t the only doofus left out of the newest, coolest thing around.  I still don’t know what the prize is for having the most following, but there has to be one or all these otherwise senscient people wouldn’t be trying so desperately hard to get them.

And since I am a professional, and this is the newest, coolest profession, I wish to announce that I too am available to twit for you.  At my standard rate.  I can’t promise to gain as many followers as somebody like @guykawasaki, I can assure you that my twits will be better than Ashton Kutcher’s (who, I might add, is not following me, no doubt for fear of twitting inadequacy).  Any takers?