#HeIsRisen

I learned about it, as I learn most news nowadays,  via Twitter. Though at first I didn’t have the faintest idea what was going on.

The hashtag #HeIsRisen doesn’t give away a lot of information, after all. And when I did a search to see how it was being used, everyone seemed to studiously avoid giving anything away.

Some of the tweets, many of the tweets, were merest gibberish, not even words, as though everything but the hashtag had simply been typed at random. Others, though made up of English words, put them in no order as to even remotely resemble a sentence.

And what few sentences there were only cast more doubt as to what #HeIsRisen might mean.

“All mankind shall tremble as one before him #HeIsRisen”

“His eons sleep, over. Finally he awakens, to break his horrible fast #HeIsRisen”

“We who yet live, we are the truly damned #HeIsRisen”

Interesting, to be sure, but still no clue was given as to who “He” was, or what he’d risen from. Still, as the day progressed and I went about my business, I couldn’t help noticing as more and more of the people I follow succumbed to the ‘tag. They’d use the phrase, and the quality of their tweets would immediately descend into the depths of the unreadable.

Or at least the unfollowable.

It felt as though there were some game going on, some inside joke that I happened to be outside of. But were that the case, surely somebody on my Twitter would’ve responded to my direct messages with answers. Most of the people I follow are pretty cool, after all, and they’re generally happy to answer questions if I ask.

But no, there was nothing. Neither response to messages, nor any clue to be gleaned from the increasingly incoherent tweets rocketing back and forth regarding #HeIsRisen.

Which was distressing. If people were tweeting something fun I wanted to participate! Or at the very least, to get the joke. But there was nothing to be done about it until I got home from my grocery shopping and could Google the phrase. Hopefully that would provide a little more detail than Twitter seemed willing to.

The search was, apparently, a popular one, because the very first result was a YouTube video, titled “#HeIsRisen: Real Footage of his Rise” and then descending into the same sort of delirious raving I’d grown, from Twitter, to expect with regard to this hashtag in lieu of a description.

Finally, the answers I sought were available to me! Firsthand footage of whatever it was the mystery ‘tag referred to, available at the click of a link! I knew, once I got home and was no longer struggling through the internet via blackberry, that I’d be able to look it up easily enough, and the internet didn’t let me down.

Why would it? Everyone has a video camera nowadays, and so it’s a matter of merest seconds between event and video, plastered across YouTube, linked across Twitter, spread to the world. I lived in an age in which more information was at my fingertips than any generation in human history had access to, and if I wanted information about why people were excited, yet unwilling to describe, #HeIsRisen, it would take me seconds, not minutes, to find it.

And so, I clicked the link.

God have mercy on us all, I clicked that forsaken link.

I can feel my mind abandoning me, even now, the vision of that gibbous, tentacled thing emerging from beneath the sea and taking it’s first, slouching steps up onto land was too much for any mind to bear, don’t you see?

Madness was the only possible result of the hideous scene I witnessed, but I must hold my splintering sanity together. I must. For a few moments more, at the very least.

For this is a momentous occasion. He is risen. Truly, he is.

And I need to Tweet about it…

#FollowFriday

…and then came the day when my Twitter followers showed up at my home.

This was, it goes without saying, unexpected. 329 people standing under my balcony as I headed out for my morning cigarette left me quite at a loss for words. But I suppose they had pledged to follow me, so I oughtn’t have been surprised by the turn of events.

I’m just grateful I was wearing pants.

I suppose they were too.

Getting to work was tougher than I’d expected, that number of people tends to stop traffic as it crosses intersections. And our arrival terrified the day manager.

He’d thought they were looking for a meal, and we don’t have the staff for that many during lunch shift.

He was enormously relieved, if still somewhat disturbed, to learn that they were simply there to follow me.

Eventually, after my third table complained about not being able to enjoy their lunch in peace, I was sent home. I’d arrived willing to work in good faith, but the throng made anything resembling productivity impossible. It’s a shame, I could have used the tips, but I understand why I was cut. And paying me through to the end of the week while I attempted to sort things out was a classy move.

There was, we realized upon our return, no way they’d all be fitting into my apartment.

It was a smallish place, but Kat and I had never needed that much space and it’d suited our purposes to that point. Finding room for an additional 329 occupants, however, wasn’t going to fly. Still, it was the tail end of summer, the weather was still gorgeous, and if the other tenants in my building had a problem with a tent city cropping up in the courtyard they were too terrified by the weird, cult-like nature of the gathered people to bring it up.

I guess it was natural that they’d be a little bit terrified. I sort of was too.

I’d never meant to form a cult via Twitter.

Though I suppose, upon reflection, that running a Twitter account does hold certain superficially cult-like qualities.

You share your thoughts with the world and hope to attract followers that hang on your every word, and the more people who follow you the more powerful you feel.

In person, however, a few hundred people waiting for my next missive swiftly began to feel oppressive.

There are only so many jokes, quips and puns about pop-culture minutiae and politics I can be expected to make. And a real crowd is tougher to ignore when I’m tired than a smartphone with a flashing red light.

I had followers, but I was quickly learning that I wasn’t cut out to lead.

I attempted to explain this, but I couldn’t figure out how to phrase how conflicted their presence left me using only 140 characters. Eventually I gave up and took the easy way out.

They packed up their tent city, I threw some things into a bag and we set out on a pilgrimage.

We’re heading west. In search of Conan O’Brien. We’re going to follow him a while, hopefully he’ll lead us better than I did.

I expect he will.

From what my Blackberry tells me, we won’t be the only ones there…

#movieswithbatman

The next summer, every movie had Batman in it.

Hollywood execs had, it would seem, been reading Twitter that day.

Comedies where Batman had raised a child, actioners featuring Batman fighting terrorists. Victorian dramas where Batman advised the Queen regarding Scotland.

In one film, a high school girl who’d only just moved to town had to make a tough decision between the Batman she loved, and the Batman who loved her.

At first we were thrilled, we’d changed the world! Our stupid gag had forever altered Hollywood!

Then we went and actually watched these films.

Now: We are not thrilled.

Springtime

I love spring, it’s my favourite season. Every year it reminds me how much beauty there is in the world.

I spend my winters indoors, in general, crouched behind a computer screen, avoiding the blistering cold. So when the snow finally melts, and I venture outside, it makes me so glad to be alive my heart aches.

I love every part of it, the smell of dew on the grass, watching the world turn green and vivid anew, the sound of birds twittering in the trees…

“Justin Bieber,” they tweet, and “#FollowFriday @ConanOBrien.”

Perhaps I’ve spent too much time online…