I resolved in the new year to blog/journal every day. It is June 18, which when put in perspective of all the things I have resolved to do and never done, is a smashing success. The first installment is entitled “Twit”.
My twitter is a teenager today. I marked the occasion aptly by tweeting in the spirit of an adolescent:
I said the F word in front of my mom last night, twice, and I think I got away with it because I was quoting Tom Hanks.
I have been committed to dumb jokes for a long time, going back to my 4th and 5th grade talent shows, where I lived out my brief career as a stand up comedian. “Top 3 Cafeteria Dishes: 3. Hot lumps with gravy 2. Hot lumps without gravy 1. Hot lumps without lumps.” For 20 years after, my best friend’s Dad would ask me for a joke every time I saw him. Next time I see him, I’ll tell him to follow me on twitter.
For 13 years, Twitter has been a place for me to explore the intersection and contrast between what I regard as my two selves: the 10 year old nerd with dumb jokes and opinions and the social justice warrior, bleeing heart, embarrasinlgy earnest idealist. These two guys are extremely skeptical of each other. Yet, there they both are, sometimes consecutively on my feed. May 9 for instance:
Celebrating 4 years and a day leading @UNFInterfaith at @UofNorthFlorida
I think about this all the time: there’s a version of Katy Perry’s Last Friday Night with Missy Elliot and one with Kenny G BUT WE NEED ONE WITH BOTH
That’s not quite accurate. There is a third self which intersects with these, on and offline. Anyone who know me online knows that I am A) Very Online and B) a Dad. My parenting exploits have earned me many laughs and heartfelt affirmations, and won me a number of fellow exhausted parents. In some cases, I showcase my kids’ witty utterances. In other cases, it’s to brag:
The masculine, fatherly pleasure of having to open a banana for your kid. I am man, I am strong.
You Crossfit, I open my kid’s Fanta bottle. We are warriors.
I just opened a jar and my testosterone levels are at an all-time high.
I try not to take myself too seriously. I am a silly person. Peanut butter is probably my most commonly tweeted phrase. I have tweeted or retweeted 54,800 + times, which also seems quite silly. I requested my tweets recently to track down my first, but then forgot to download the file in time. Silly person.
It surely is easy to dismiss Twitter as at best silly and at worst complicit in the downfall of American Democracy. It certainly is capable of distorting our interactions with each other and dangerously skew what information and disinformation is delivered to people. On the other hand, the Arab Spring and Black Lives Matter both utilized the network for organizing, and people with various marginalized identities speak of the opportunity they have seized to amplify their own and each others’ voices.
Twitter is just a part of real life. It’s part of the fabric of social fabric and 21st century corporate media which we are challenged to engage with some level of responsibility, in between jokes about coffee stains of course.
I have found Twitter to be a place where I can listen to voices of people who quite different experiences and identities than me, a place to listen in with curiosity. I have found it a place to refine my own moral voice and influence. This latter finding has been most fruitful in interaction with a local network, which for me, is Jacksonville Twitter.
Jacksonville twitter has given me online companions I still have not met, and more, it has given me dear friends and energizing collaborators who I now know as flesh and blood friends.
So here is to 13 years as a Twit. Twitter is real life. You don’t have to use it. But if you do, use it wisely. Dumb jokes permitted.
Matt Hartley 