I never thought my fifteen minutes of Internet fame would come from impersonating a bear wandering the Seattle suburbs on Twitter, but really, who could predict that?
Yesterday I learned (via Twitter) that Seattle news outlets had been overrun with stories about a bear sighted in several places around the city/suburbs over the last four days. It seemed the media there had latched onto the story as their Amusing Light Story of the Week. We've all seen those stories and rolled our eyes at them, yes? Later that afternoon I saw Sundry, who lives in the Seattle area, tweet: "I can't believe the Elusive Seattle Bear doesn't have a Twitter account yet. Someone get on this."
I followed Sundry on my new Twitter account and started my life as a virtual bear. I didn't really think beyond my first tweet when I did this. "Gave the police the slip again! Considering sponsor offers/selling ad space on my fur. Would wearing bear stickers make my butt look big?" But much to my surprise, Sundry followed me back and promptly tweeted "God bless Twitter: @TheSeattleBear"
That's when my followers started to gather, the retweets started popping up, and other Seattle resident tweeters started commenting on the bear showing up on Twitter. Another account, @seattlebear, was created by someone, and the battle was on.
@seattlebear: "@TheSeattleBear meet at Ballard Locks Fish Ladder at 5pm. Winner take all (all the fish). Loser move to Chicago (me heard they have Cubs)."
At this point I began to doubt the wisdom behind creating a Twitter account of a Seattle-wandering bear, being as the closest I've ever been to Seattle is...Mount Rushmore in South Dakota when I was thirteen. But I had nothing to lose in the battle since I already live in Chicago (go Cubs!), so I stuck with it.
"Went running today. Aiming for spokesbear gig for Kid Fitness. Going to be the Smokey of 2009. http://tinyurl.com/p7skuq"
"Working on an "on the run" playlist per @brianseitz suggestion. Anyone have any good song suggestions?"
"Possible joint advert campaign theme: Smokey and the Bandit. Y/N? I'd love to work with someone like Smokey. Admired him since I was a cub."
Then the radio stations, news stations, and Seattle blogs started following me. My tweets even showed up in a blog entry on The Seattle Post-Intelligencer and on My Northwest.com.
I had more followers and came out victorious in the twitterduel when @seattlebear admitted to being @bostonsteamer and NOT a real bear. As of this morning my account has 144 followers and I've been re-tweeted and mentioned by dozens more. I have not yet admitted on my Twitter stream that I'm @annabelle_me, a woman living in Chicago and tweeting from her iPhone, and not a Real Bear. I'm not sure I will. I sort of like hanging with @Fremont_Troll and other Seattleites. Maybe I'll take a vacation out that way someday soon. I've certainly got enough offers of places to crash!
God bless Twitter. Thanks for the fifteen minutes of Internet fame.
