My Twitter thread follows my Chihuahua Stöpsel for one day. He was rescued from a kill shelter in LA in 2016 (at that point he was app. 6 years old), transported to Calgary and put up for adoption while staying with foster pawrents. He stole my heart shorty after and has been getting spoiled and loved on ever since.
This was my first encounter with Twitter and I wasn’t prepared for the struggles of creating a thread (only after several attempts and linking two tweets at the same time would it allow me to add additional tweets to an existing story). I guess ‘Dr. Google’ has become my best friend while taking online courses.
Dealing with technical issues was not the only hurdle. I also had to figure out a writing style. Generally, I prefer to use punctuation and to spell out words, abbreviations are more of an exception. At first, I tried to mimic what I have seen on Twitter: short words, removed vowels, simple to none sentence structure. But that only made me feel as if I was a nerd trying to sound like a cool kid.
After reading the paragraph on “Write the way you talk” (“The Non-Writers’ Guide To Writing Better Social Media Copy“), I decided to stay true to myself and write on social media the way I compose my text messages. It might result is less likes, but it lets me be me. And who knows, perhaps people my generation might appreciate it (after all, social media is not just for people born in the 21st century).
In regards to the content, I soon decided on a funny approach. I wanted the readers to react with a smile or a chuckle. I’m sarcastic by nature, but had to ‘soften’ it after coming to Canada. Sharing my humour on social media allows me to write it down and to revise my draft if I feel that I could be misunderstood.
The storyline is in chronological order with a beginning, a middle, and an end by showing my dog’s activities in the morning, during the day, and in the evening. However, it doesn’t really have much suspense or tension. My dog leads a rather mundane life – if I’d let him, he’d simply eat and sleep all day long and get some belly rubs in between.
To keep the tweets interesting and the readers engaged, I focused on an entertaining element within each post. I created a juxtaposition between the written text and the accompanied visual representation (at least I tried to). My goal was to have the text describe how my dog sees himself (smart, witty, brave, and adventurous), while the pictures/videos show him from my perspective (timid, shy to the outside but yet comfortable and a bit brave towards me, but foremost: the sweetest and cutest companion).
I added one little suspense into my thread by incorporating a question at the beginning and answering it in the end. The name of my Chihuahua is unique (a nickname that inadvertently turned into a name) and I asked if anyone knows its meaning. In my last post I solved that mystery (Stöpsel literally translated means ‘plug’ or ‘peg’, but in some southern parts of Germany it is colloquially an endearing term for a tiny boy). While I’m not really leaving viewers hanging in anticipation with this one question, I still hope the answer gives them a sense of conclusion similar to the end of a chapter or a book.
While the overall narrative might not draw in countless views as is it isn’t very climatic, the content still seems relatable. Many people are introverts and might prefer to eat and sleep all day as well. And, during a global pandemic many might have done just that within the last year.
My hope is, that everyone reading the thread smiles or smirks at least once (at least I did while making the posts).
EXSM 3989 - Digital Storytelling Class Blog 