I’m All A-Twitter


I Tweet, therefore I am.

Cotweeto ergo sum is my just made-up version of the seventeenth century French philosopher Rene Descartes’s cogito ergo sum loosely translated: I think, therefore I am.

What would Descartes or other philosophers of his era think about social media and blogging, I wondered.  It might go something like this.

I must Tweet so that you can Follow Me and I will Follow You and Re-Tweet your Tweets which are my Favorites and to which I shall Reply by sending you a Message which you may choose to Tweet or Not to Tweet because that is truly the question.

I rarely Tweeted for years, and never in front of anyone. (Sorry. I couldn’t resist.) I had many excuses…I was too old to Tweet, I had no time to learn to Tweet, I had no one to Tweet to…but mainly I didn’t Tweet because I had Facebook. Surely that was sufficient for my foray into social media. It took me a LONG time to learn how to navigate the murky Facebook waters and I was afraid I might expire before I mastered Tweeting.

Plus Tweeting apparently was limited to 120 characters per communique. Are you kidding me? I could zip through 120 characters in saying hello to someone – never mind writing anything else and what kind of letter begins and ends with hello anyway. Nope, Tweeting wasn’t for me.

I never would have joined the ranks of the Tweeters if it had not been for my lone Twittering Florida friends Skye and her dog Sonny. They Favorited and Re-Tweeted all three of my blogs faithfully for more than a year and I faithfully Tweeted to them – but only to them. Last month that changed. I’m not sure why or how, but I began Tweeting to their suggested friends and became a full-fledged Twitterer. I give Skye & Sonny credit and thanks.

I now have over 300 Twitter followers on all three of my blogs which may not seem like many to Ellen or Steve Spurrier, but it’s amazing to me.  I’m not sure if any of them actually read my posts, but I like to think they at least give them a cursory glance and I know I am happy to have them on board.

And who can say? Perhaps Rene Descartes would have welcomed the opportunity to Tweet.

 

 

 

 

Published by Sheila Morris

Sheila Morris is a personal historian, essayist with humorist tendencies, lesbian activist, truth seeker and speaker in the tradition of other female Texas storytellers including her paternal grandmother. In December, 2017, the University of South Carolina Press published her collection of first-person accounts of a few of the people primarily responsible for the development of LGBTQ+ organizations in South Carolina. Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement: Committed to Home will resonate with everyone interested in LGBTQ+ history in the South during the tumultuous times from the AIDS pandemic to marriage equality. She has published five nonfiction books including two memoirs, an essay compilation and two collections of her favorite blogs from I'll Call It Like I See It. Her first book, Deep in the Heart: A Memoir of Love and Longing received a Golden Crown Literary Society Award. Her writings have been included in various anthologies including Out Loud: the best of Rainbow Radio, Saints and Sinners New Fiction from the 2017 Festival, Mothers and Other Creatures; Cowboys, Cops, Killers, and Ghosts (Texas Folklore Society LXIX). She is a displaced Texan living in South Carolina with her wife Teresa Williams and their dogs Spike, Charly and Carl. She is also Naynay to her two granddaughters Ella and Molly James who light up her life for real. Born in rural Grimes County, Texas in 1946 her Texas roots still run wide and deep.

7 replies on “I’m All A-Twitter”

  1. Aw, gee, Sheila! Now I feel pressured!! 😀
    I’ve resisted Twitter because I can’t figure out what it’s good for. And, I am deepl into a Facebook addiction. Guess this twit needs to investigate tweets.

    Love and hugs,
    Ann

    Liked by 1 person

Comments are closed.