(It’s guest post Friday! Here’s one from John Hughes. You can check out his blog here. You can also follow him on Twitter. If you want to write a guest post for SCL, here’s how!)
Christian live tweeting
Live tweeting is all the rage at any conference or gathering of people. And like many things, the church is starting to pick up on this.
I was recently at a denominational conference, and we were given the opportunity to live tweet while the speakers were delivering their message. Being not so new to Twitter, but entirely new to live tweeting, I was a bit apprehensive as the conference kicked off. How many people at a rural denominational conference are going to actually tweet?
In the most southern of sentences, it was “a whole bunch.” I floundered to find my voice and eventually caught on to the different personas that exist during a live tweet.
And what are they you ask?
I’m glad you can read my mind. A non-exhaustive list follows:
1. Requoter: The person who does nothing more than simply tweet an exact quote from the keynote speaker. They worry that the original message is more important than self-application so they refuse to modify anything. This is helpful at any conference where a transcript of the message will not be available later on.
2. Introspecter: The person who really takes the message to heart. So much so they must relate in 140 or less characters how moved they were by a simple statement. These people tend to be a little furry and hard to pin down. Often, the association of their emotion to the speech is loose at best.
3. Quick Draw McGraw (I hope that isn’t a copyright infringement!): This person’s sole purpose is to get a comment or quote out about a particular thought before the rest of the group can. These are the same people that buzz in on Jeopardy before the full question is stated and flounder for the answer.
4. Retweeter: All this person does is retweet what others have stated. It appears this person is incapable of original thought. Honestly they may be robots. Christian robots here to take your KJV translations.
5. Master Distracter: Not to be confused with the introspecter, this person has some of the same goals, but they really don’t care about the message being delivered. They will use a speech on quantum physics to tell you about their hard times or prayer needs. If you follow them long enough, you will forget there is even someone speaking.
6. Incessant Tweeter: This person seems to not really hear any of the message. All they do is tweet. Honestly, they may not even really be there. They can just take cues from other commenters and fake it. Whatever you do, do not engage them. This will result in a 4-day conversation about the event they may or may not have actually attended. And Twitter etiquette requires you respond to anyone who addresses you.
7. Clueless: This person is new to Twitter and just can’t quite seem to get it. They may get the hashtag correct, but they don’t actually include any content, or they spend the entire conference using the wrong hashtags and wondering where all the other Twitter users are. We have all been this person. Just gently nudge them in the right direction, and if they don’t seem to catch up, just block them.
I think we have to be careful with live tweeting however. I love the concept, but as a one-sided conversation, live tweeting can become a conversational bully. Blowing up feeds of people with line after line of sermon tweets will get you blocked quicker than posting pictures of Jesus wagging his finger at you.
What are some of the personalities you have encountered during a live tweet session?
For more great writing from John, check out his blog.
