It's A Tweetiful Thing

In case you're like me and were stuck watching something about a magician that your significant other found on television, be advised: night one of a two-night special on Justin Bieber took place on NBC last night.  The special goes behind the scenes of a Justin tour, and is a part-documentary, part-performance showcase for the guy who doesn't need to be showcased.

Two of my sisters were watching the show and tweeting about it.  One sent out a relatively innocuous tweet about how she wished it were a 5-day special.  She did not mention Justin Bieber; she did not even include his "handle" (ie. his Twitter "address") in her tweet.

But I guess the Biebs follows this particular sister of mine (long story short, she met him -- I know) and he saw her tweet go out.  He realized she was talking about his special.  So he paid her the ultimate Twitter compliment. 

He retweeted her tweet.  (Mum, this takes your Twitter education to the next level.  A RT means that Justin copied her tweet and sent it around so that his bajillion followers could see that Sister Sister had said what she'd said about The Biebs.  You know what?  Never mind.)

My sister then proceeded to lose her shit.  I actually heard her do it through my phone.  I live in Maine and she lives in the South, but her screams were that piercing and her smile was that big.  I heard reports that air traffic controllers had to reroute several planes away from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport because her shrieking messed up radar systems for a sustained 5 minutes.

Her husband then remarked, via Twitter of course, that he'd never seen her so happy.  Including on their wedding day.

Then something else happened.  After the Biebs retweeted her, his legions of fans started following suit.  Hundreds of them.  Like the hundreds near 1,000, not the hundreds near 100.  In the process, she became even more Twitter famous and added to her already solid base of followers.  (And as she received a notification of each RT, her smartphone must have checked its calendar for the "rattlesnake transformation" appointment and become confused at seeing nothing for 8:28PM on Wednesday, June 20 scheduling such a transformation.) 

The event demonstrates two things: the power of the Biebs and the power of Twitter.  I believe my brother-in-law when he says he's never seen my sister so happy.  Twitter is the exploitation of some of the most basic instincts we all feel.  (1) We want to feel connected to celebrity, especially to celebrity we care about; and (2) we want our thoughts and reactions and musings validated.  Any basic RT makes you feel pretty good about yourself -- someone thinks that something you sent out into the universe was worthy of sharing.  It was that funny, that poignant, that emblematic of whatever situation it was summarizing in 140 characters or less.  But being RT'd by the likes of a Justin Bieber?  Well, hot damn.  Now you're getting that affirmation from the type of super-person that the rest of the world has made somehow more special than the rest of us Twitter-addled peons.

Everyone who is even semi-engrossed with Twitter understands what my sister was feeling.  I know this to be true because this is a girl who's had her fair share of glory, met her fair share of celebs, and had her fair share of unparalleled life experiences.  And yet she will forever remember the night Justin Bieber retweeted her.

I provided my husband with a recap of this Bucket List event my sister just enjoyed.  He is not big into Twitter, but after some general explanation, he grasped the holy significance of what had just transpired.  Then he looked at me and, in a semi-serious tone, hypothesized: "Well, maybe you can use Twitter to get in touch with Johnny Depp and invite him to Maine."

It's moments like that where I am compelled to dust off the "Renew Our Vows" file folder I don't have.

Actually, though, Johnny Depp is my dream, but not my Twitter dream.  No, my Twitter dream is that someday, some blog post will do a lightning-take off and take this little enterprise of mine into the stratosphere. 

As that homeless guy at the end of Pretty Woman shouted, "What's your dream?  This is [Twitter].  Everybody got a dream."

Now you know my sister's.  And you know mine.

What's your dream?