LIVE TWEETING

I'm finally catching up with the rest of the 21st Century. I've had a Twitter account for a year now but never used it more than to follow famous people. But this thing called live tweeting... oh man, I'm hooked. You use what are called hashtags to mark your tweet as belonging to a particular thread (idea, product, television show, etc.). The thread appears in real time so you can see what others are saying about the topic as well. It's not necessarily a conversation, though I've seen one become chatty for a hot minute. To me, they're more about expression.  

Lately, I've been following Stephen Colbert's thread, #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement. See, last week, Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona said something wildly untrue about Planned Parenthood, and when the media called him out on it, a spokesperson said that Sen. Kyl's remarks were not intended to be a factual statement, rather to prove a point. My man Colbert took this and ran with it, using the phrase as a disclaimer after several untrue statements he made about the senator. He created this hashtag and continued his tirade on Twitter where it reverberates to this day. I've kept the search up while I've written here, and already there've been forty-eight tweets added to the thread. And you know, most of 'em are pretty damn funny. God bless the Colbert Nation.

I also enjoy watching the evening news while tuned in to a hashtag on Twitter. For example, I sometimes watch The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell which has the hashtag #lastword associated with it. Viewers comment on whatever comes up on the show in (nearly) real time... you have to account for a small lag while the search refreshes, but other than that, the comments are spot on. It's very cathartic to listen to other Progressives bitch and moan like I do.  Ha!

I think it'd be great to have enough clout as a writer to draw an audience to a hashtag of my own creation. Truly, that's a sign that you've made it in today's electronic media blitz: if you can attract the most attention. It's also a sign of the emerging market of readers/consumers of media and entertainment. They're always caught up in something new and shiny. As if creative people need one more thing to stress over, right?