xCommie

Clinton Eastwood made me do it. Twitter helped.

View Video ›

On Thursday, August 30th, at 10:39pm, I became @InvisibleObama.

I had no choice.

Watching Clint Eastwood berate an empty chair was one of those moments, right up there with Angelina Jolie’s right leg. Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction. Michael Jackson’s moonwalk. The last episode of The Sopranos. I knew everyone was thinking the same thing. I knew everyone was going to talk about it tomorrow. And thanks to social media, everyone was talking to each other about it within seconds.

I just accidentally took advantage of it.

Before it all happened, in the weeks leading up to the Republican National Convention, I personally felt compelled to joke, criticize, and mock the current state of politics in America. Following politics closely has been a hobby of mine for quite some time, and a big reason why I went to school in Washington, DC (go GWU!). So that all came naturally for me. But this particular political climate has created a highly charged and polarized electorate; one that would probably be more equally engaged anonymously.

I started while Clint Eastwood was still on stage, and with an obligatory "I can't believe no one has this account yet" exclamation. I then tweeted its existence from my personal account (@ischafer), knowing full well that I'm followed by several people in the news media. But I didn't expect what would happen next.

Within 20 minutes, the account was on fire with retweets, @replies and mentions, quickly becoming the default descriptor for the vacant chair on stage at the convention in Tampa. Every refresh of the page added another nearly 200 followers. The first tweet, "..." wasn't going to cut it. @InvisibleObama, had an audience, and I felt an obligation to perform. The tweets (and puns) started pouring out. The freakish nature of Clint Eastwood's performance and the silliness of the initial tweets got me my first wave of followers. I made a quick decision to keep what I was tweeting bi-partisan (or with dual meaning):

View Entire List ›