Have I Been Assimilated?

Last updated on: October 23, 2012 at 10:03 am by Jeremy Lott

Have I Been Assimilated? 2012-10-23T10:03:35-07:00 Jeremy Lott

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Your diarist wonders if it’s even possible for a working writer to resist Twitter at this point, especially during a political season. The short answer is that it’s possible but not feasible — not if you want your opinions to have some currency anyway.

Several Twitter accounts have been set up for me over the years by friends and employers. I had treated them mostly with indifference. Then I started blogging for Patheos and the powers that be (ahem) strongly encouraged me to start a Twitter account.

I obliged them (@jeremylottdiary) only because a service was found that automatically posts from here to Facebook and Twitter without me having to lift a finger. It seemed the perfect compromise. After the initial, rather painless set-up, that whole “social media” thing would take care of itself.

Then a friend pointed out to me that the way to really build up your Twitter following was by “following” a bunch of people and “re-tweeting” them. I did a bit of that, but assured myself that this did not count as being fully Twitterpated. After all, I wasn’t wasting a bunch of time on Twitter golfing up new content.

Then Real Clear World asked me to blog the foreign policy debate. I said yes, of course I’d do it, and then learned that we’d be blogging by tweeting. So I obliged. I mean, I had the account there and everything, so why not?

You can see some of the results of that here. The RCW aggregators only used maybe half of my tweets and there was an awful lot of re-tweeting and new followers on Twitter. Does that mean I’ll stick around and become a regular Twitter-er or Tweeter or Twit or whatever the kids are calling it these days?

“No, no and a thousand times no!” I say with fake confidence. But the road is wide, the slope is slippery, and Cassandra is getting ready with those I-told-you-so’s.

Lit Life

Previous Post

October 22, 2012

A Warm Bucket of TV

Next Post

October 23, 2012 The Bestseller That Never Was

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 1600 24 Frames Per Second Adventures in Catholicism Evergreen Gay Old Time Hammockonomics Lit Crit Lit Life Paulistas Philosophy Press Crit PSA Q&A Sermons and Soda Water Shop Talk Silly Season Sounds Stupid Stupid People Uncategorized Warm Bucket Brigade Wine and Women Wisdom for the Ages

Select a Month April 2015 February 2015 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does the rider of the White Horse in Revelations carry?

Select your answer to see how you score.

A bow Scales A scroll A sword