Tuesday, January 11, 2011

What happened??

Had to dust off the old blog for this one because WHOA nelly, what an interesting 24 hours I've had.

So yesterday, I was making muffins, and when my hands are occupied and my mind isn't, stuff pops in. It usually pops out on Facebook or Twitter. So after I finished grating and juicing four oranges, I tweeted this: "So Palin & crew are feeling unjustly blamed for the actions of an extremist. Maybe they can ask Muslims for advice on how to deal with that."

Just something snarky. My usual fare. After I finished mixing the muffins, I checked Twitter again and had a few positive replies from my usual followers and noticed I'd been retweeted (reposted). Yay! People liked it. On with the muffins.

Muffins are in the oven. I checked Twitter from my computer to see how many times I'd been retweeted - 20! That was a record. I'd also gotten 6 new followers, which was exciting. I went to take a shower.

Shower's done, hair's dry, muffins are out of the oven. I hear my phone blowing up. I've gotten 30 followers since I last checked my e-mail. I check Twitter and my replies column is spinning - messages of support and people paraphrasing to retweet. (Tech moment. A proper retweet won't show up to the author, it just gets logged on Twitter. Some people will retweet so it will show up to the author, and it shows up as a regular reply.)

I texted a couple of my friends to let them know that I was kind of a big deal on Twitter right now, and as I'm having conversations with them, my phone keeps beeping with new e-mails. 10 more followers. 10 more followers. 10 more followers. I checked my Twitter again, and my replies column is out of control.

People are starting to yell at me. I got called a whore, a racist (??), and was told to shut the **** up. Someone told me they can't wait for the end of the world in 2012 so people like me would shut up forever. I freaked out a liiiiiiittle bit and locked my account down to private. Had Drew do the same thing.

Still, people are retweeting. And following. A LOT. These were follower requests - people couldn't see my tweets unless I allowed them to. And I wasn't allowing them to.

I got a notification that I was trending in Portland. "Trending" means I was a trending topic, which means I was one of the 10 most popular things being talked about in Portland at that time. Then I got a notification that I was trending in Seattle. Then I got a notification that I was trending in CANADA. THE WHOLE COUNTRY was talking about me. Yowza.

THEN. I was featured on twitter.com/toptweets, which features the most popular tweets on Twitter. They have 800K+ followers. WOW.

There was much pit sweat during this time, folks. I've always liked writing and thought that mayyyybeeee some day I'd do some actual published writing and I figured people might like it, but I had a moment in the kitchen yesterday when I realized that roughly a million people had read what I'd written. People were suggesting me to Keith Olbermann for his Tweet of the Day segment. Lots of people watch his show. YIIIKES.

Went to my Bible study last night to regroup. Told everyone what had happened and at one point opened my Twitter to show them and I had gotten a bunch of notifications that people were using my tweet and not crediting me. Really popular people. That doesn't bother me so much, because I had put it out on a popular, public domain, but hey, I'd been plagiarized! COOL.

When I woke up this morning and checked my e-mail, I had 149 new follower requests, bringing my total to 229. I absolutely could not believe I had somehow gotten that popular. I checked Twitter and several people were telling me that I was being featured on the front page of Reddit.com, which is a website where you can submit links which people will then vote on, and the more votes a link gets, the higher it's featured on the website. My tweet was number one. Reddit is a VERY popular website. There's the pit sweat again.

So, I took my baby to school, stopped for some coffee, came home, and decided to face the music. I un-protected my tweets, accepted all my new followers, and started responding to my replies. For most of the day today, with obviously long breaks to take care of and play with my kid, I've been responding to people. 99% of the replies are messages of support. The 1% that disagree with me aren't so bad. I understand their point of view. Most of them disagree with the analogy I made, but in arguing their point, they're reinforcing mine.

So that's what's happened. I've gone from 420-ish followers to, at press time, 892. It's rumored that my tweet has been retweeted an estimated 25,000 times. I've been called "f***ing brilliant." Me.

I'm just feeling sorry for my new followers, because I'm about 6% profound political observations and 94% fart jokes.

We'll see where this goes.

12 comments:

Allison said...

Doesn't surprise me in the least. You're already a local celebrity with WLBT using your FB comments on air all the time. You were born to be a Daily Show writer or something! And I love ya.

Katy said...

Brava! I love your smart, snarky political commentary and am not at all surprised by this.

ngcmommy said...

Always thought you should be famous! :) PS: Sorry about Michael's name mentioning...he never would have if he had any clue it'd be bad!!!!

Anonymous said...

I am so proud of you. Keep up the good work.









Otto

Jonathan said...

Woohoo! My cousin is famous.

My opinion on Palin is pretty subdued. That poster with the crosshairs on it and the list of names - she deserves every bit of negative press and publicity she gets for that. You don't put out something like that in public, and then when someone actually gets shot, not expect to get dirty looks.

Anyway, keep on truckin'. Maybe I can ride your coattails and get to be the scurrilous cousin who stays in the guest house, paying for rent and pizza by cleaning the pool once a week or something.

Jonathan said...

Woohoo! My cousin is famous.

Regarding the Palin comment, my opinion is this: You don't put out a poster with crosshair'd locations on it, juxtaposed with a list of names of people that represent those locations, and when one of those people actually gets shot, not expect to get a ton of dirty looks. She deserves every bit of the negative press and publicity she gets.

Anyway, I hope I can ride your coattails as you accumulate stardom. I'll clean your pool if I get to stay in your guesthouse.

Doug said...

Stay strong HWiFF!

Jennifer said...

Hahaa! Dang that's crazy!! I knew you'd be famous one day! Snag their attention with the political gobblygook and then drop a few fart jokes! Stacey for President! (and congrats! You deserve an audience more than anyone I know!) :oD

Waterfall said...

Wow. My cuz is famous! I feel all special being the first to comment here! :-)

Congrats!

Melia said...

So awesome, Stacey. it was indeed a brilliant tweet, and when you get the kind of retweeting and backlash that you did, you know it's spot-on.

Very cool story about how quickly Internet celebrity happens!

watercolordaisy said...

So take THAT mm!! :) love you!!

Erin Steele said...

We all love to read what you write and you crack me up every time....sometimes i think you would not just be a great writer/blogger but also you would be great on a late night comedy show...lol! As an old friend you have always cracked me up and i think you have a point and a great arguement for everythign you say! Love ya girl, go get'em tiger!!!