Why I Can’t Leave Twitter

By Allison Johnson
Blog Content Contributor

I have been on Twitter for six years now. Back in 2011, when I made my account I would not have imagined that I would enjoy it as much as I do now. Facebook was still in its peak, even for people my own age. The reason I made my account was because I wanted to keep up with my favorite comedian, Daniel Tosh. At the end of each episode of Tosh.O, he would say, “follow me on twitter to live tweet with me during the show.” So for a couple of years, I had a few random bot followers, and only followed Daniel to tweet him during new episodes of his show.  

Eventually, my friends began to migrate over to Twitter. For a while, it was a little lame. Most accounts were abandoned after a few months only after a handful of tweets, and most of them often said things like, “Twitter is weird” “I don’t know what to tweet” or “lol finally got twitter.” Around 2013-2014, Twitter began to pick up its pace with our generation. I noticed we went from just following our favorite celebrities and retweeting them, to tweeting our own thoughts.

In 2015 or so, I noticed we began to start tweeting more thoughtful things. We took advantage of knowing we were all watching the same thing and that Twitter was much easier way of communicating about an event rather than calling, texting, or simply waiting for a story the next day. I remember Twitter went crazy the night Leonardo Dicaprio won his first Oscar. Both men and women from all ages were tweeting about it. A lot of fans have followed his career from when he was younger, so of course many Twitter users tweeted about it because it was a long-awaited moment for not only Dicaprio, but us too.

Speaking of Oscars, my favorite live tweet moment was this year when Best Picture was announced wrong at the Oscars. Many of us were so quick to tweet our reactions within seconds of the event. A lot of peoples’ reactions went viral. It was a trending topic that night on Twitter. We didn’t go to Twitter to tweet about being angry though, a lot of us took light of the situation and tweeted funny things about it, including memes. If you were on Twitter the night of the Oscars, you probably saw the meme of Steve Harvey captioned “And the Winner is La La Land.” This alludes to when he announced the winner of Miss Universe incorrectly in 2016. Memes are an important feature to live tweeting since they can explain how we feel in a picture. They’re like political cartoons in journalism, but for social media.

There is an audience big enough for just about any show to discuss it. Especially if you’re a fan of sports or TV shows on premium channels like Game of Thrones and Shameless. I love when everyone is tweeting about one of my favorite shows, like American Horror Story. It’s a show with so much conflict and ambiguity that leaves viewers with having to come up with their own theories about what is to come the next week. It’s simple to join the conversation. All you have to do is use a hashtag. If an account is public and they use a hashtag that pertains to the TV show, you can easily find it and interact with others.

The hashtags #AHS and #AHSRoanoke were used during season five of American Horror Story. I was truly in awe and so excited to read other fans theories from all over the world each week.

Whether it’s a dramatic TV show or a live event, something funny or interesting is bound to get tweeted about. For example, if you’re ever on Twitter when a tornado warning or thunderstorm is taking place in San Marcos, you’re in for some funny tweets by Texas State students complaining about flooding.

Featured image by Hannah Wisterman.