Widespread economic panic, destruction of everyone’s retirement accounts, home prices through the floor, a holiday snowstorm paralyzing the country, and David Hasselhoff singing the national anthem at a bowl game.  If this wasn’t enough to convince you that the world is off its rocker, I bring you the Shorty Awards.

Thankfully, this is not a reference to the Hip Hop community’s favorite groupies.  But it is a ceremony for the best “Twitterers.”  Yes, if you can constantly come up with 140 characters of witty banter, you can be nominated.

So far I see Darth Vader and Peggy Olsen (pretending to be the Peggy Olsen from Mad Men) are nominated, along with many of the old Web 2.0 stand-bys that you’d expect to see nominating each other.  If you’ve never used Twitter, this might be a place to see what all the short-form hubbub is about.