Seriously, some mysterious person for some mysterious reason nominated my Twitter for a “top 10 social media Titans in the Twin Cities” award. While it would be cool if I won, I have no idea what any of that means. My tweets are simply about things that interest me, nothing more and nothing less. Certainly I have a lot of interests, and I tweet about them when something interesting happens to me. While my existence no longer reflects the Loony Tunes physics of my teens and twenties, once in awhile I see something worth the 140 characters. Sometimes I think of something that will make someone laugh. Sometimes I leave public notice when I do things where someone might need to find my body.

I’m not aiming for anything social or artsy. I’m just expressing myself, and trying to connect with souls who can add dimension to my daily perspective. I find those souls by synchronicity, accident, or sheer fangirl enthusiasm. (@FrederickWeller has a feed well worth reading from the bottom up.)

For those tuning in, motivated by the “mystery” that is social media:

I’m as mystified by my follower count as are those that meet me. Have you seen the feed counts on my blog? Low! Obviously, the very idea of strategy is gathering dust bunnies in my consciousness.

When I first got into using Twitter, it was a sanity-saver, since I work at home, alone and sometimes the isolation gets to me. As far as “strategy” “SEO” or “social media” go there’s been far less put into mine than goes into most who use theirs professionally. What strategy does go in comes from Twitterfeeder – I post my blogs because people on my feed know me, and want to read my blog, or use Twitter in place of an RSS feed because Twitter allows just the right amount of social distance: it’s not voyeurism if you read a blog post from a Twitter, but you’re not such good friends you feel obligated to comment.

Given the frosty nature of most Minnesotans, Twitter makes a lot of sense. I say this not only  because I consider Facebook one of the latest additions in the circles of Hell, but because as a state culture, folks here are reserved. This gives them a chance to screen me for nine or ten years before making a decision about me. It drove me crazy when I moved here, but I’ve watched Fargo often enough now that I at least understand the concept behind the reservation.

I will say I’ve made friends, or at least friendly acquaintances, through Twitter. This must, however come with a caveat: I have an unusually high tendency to meet the people in the box – that is to say, most of the people I’ve become closely associated with online I do tend to meet in person, often more than once. It began with my friend Ruth from the Daria fan community deciding she wanted margaritas with me and sending me a ticket, and it’s just been the way of my life ever since. (Ruth is still a dear friend of mine.)  While I haven’t met everyone I follow on Twitter, I’m reasonably certain I’ve met around 25%, either because we met before Twitter use or through #igniteminneapolis or the #mplsdoctorwhomeetup.

I like Twitter. It’s a good way to meet minds, and I hope it sticks around for a long time . But, in this strange examination, if I were to pinpoint the reason my Twitter gets so much interest…

It would be sincerity. I’m not a great writer. I’m not a great artist.  I’m a C-list blogger on Fat Chic, and I’m pretty sure this blog doesn’t even get a letter.¹ I do not really do anything even remotely resembling social media strategy on my feed. I follow my honest interests, respond to what truly resonates, and comment when I think it’s worth sharing.

However I got on this list, thank you. I really am glad someone enjoys reading my Tweets, although I have to admit I tend to think in a more general “from the personalities I know on my list someone will appreciate this” rather than “this will get retweeted/inspire action/inspire sales!”  I guess you could count it as a contribution to Twin Cities culture in the winter, when we’re all indoors appreciating how computers can heat up a room.

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1. Great = famous, in this context. Whether I’m any good is completely irrelevant to me – that’s what rewrites are for.

Admittedly, I haven’t been online active in the Pagan web since the heyday of Medea’s Chariot, and that site is the now dead-from-neglect child of divorce. I’ve grown up a lot since then, so while my religion is still the same, my spiritual perspectives have changed quite a bit. This also means it’s much more difficult for me to find a conversation online or in-person that I want to engage in: it’s not a judgment of right or wrong, it’s simply a disparity between my own values and thematic outwardly-shared values of my neopagan brethren that makes it a little hard to get a satisfying conversation rolling. There’s also the issue that the same subjects keep coming up over and over again, little controversies (robed or unrobed? 9 foot circle with a rope or with energy direction? Is fluffly a familiar?) that aren’t intended to have resolution. And there’s also the matters of time, and reputation. I have interests expanding far beyond the occult and Wicca, but if that’s all people ever want to talk to me about it, I feel like I’ve fallen culturally short.

Still, sometimes I just need a fix, or a few perspectives. I go to these sites because I usually get something out of them, although my extended periods of silence on a few of these sites often causes people to take me for a noob and engage in some really patronizing shenanigans. But, like in all things: the negative is what grabs your attention, but for the most part, they’re all pretty good.

1. Wild Hunt – arguably the best and most comprehensive coverage of Pagan interest at the moment. I don’t much listen to podcasts, but the blog itself is extremely satisfying and well done.

2. Facing North. Lisa McSherry has gathered some of the more thoughtful book and material reviewers to write for this site, and it gives sincere and deep perspective on what’s out there, more than the walk-too-lightly approach many publications take for fear of hurting feelings. These are thoughtful evaluations, sometimes as much intended for the author of the work as they are for readers determining whether to buy, and it does gather and observe all paths. (Full disclosure: I am a contributor to this site.)

3. Letters from Hardscrabble Creek, Chas Clifton’s blog, turns up some academic and Paganism as we’re relearning it points that always give me some food for thought.

4. Barbelith forums. This isn’t a place (usually) for daily chatter, but it is a collection of really thoughtful, mostly sane people who explore with seriousness concepts in magical practice – along with thousands of other topics. You do have to apply for admittance to the forum, but once you’re in, it’s well worth the efforts.

5. Twitter. That’s right, you read that. If you download Tweetdeck and use the search feature to highlight discussions about the occult, Wicca, and so on you will sooner or later find conversations you want to pursue. I use Twitter for multiple venues and interests, and it’s been useful for me in meeting people and getting to know them better.

6. PaganSpace. Part of Ning network’s confusing “diy” social networks, it is reasonably well-run, although it can take some time to develop a little savvy about how to make it work for you. While this site does have a user-fluff factor, it also has a series of private groups and plenty of ways you can go and make your own conversation in the groups section.
Children/teenagers were recently banned from the network, and while that has created some upset, I consider it a favorable and responsible act on the part of management. The entire situation with parents and their children is a messy legal minefield, and until there’s a major corporation setting it up, there’s just no safe way to guarantee a kid-friendly Pagan network without close person to person networking and vetting.

7. Witch’s Voice. Not so much a community these days, but more an information portal, it’s now the “old school” way of connecting to Pagans locally, using their considerable listing pages. While some essays are interesting and Wren’s nest continues to find news and information of interest to all pagans on what might be considered the first Pagan news blog, the fall off in managed content has made the site a little bit scattershot. It is still, however, probably the one place everyone entering the Pagan community needs to go first – but where they need to go after that remains a little vague.

8. The Magical Buffet looks to need a little help with coming to for with technology, but is an interesting buffet of politics, magic and esoteric thought.

9. Occult Corpus is a pan- occultism discussion forum that I sometimes lurk on. While the conversations can be maddening, the links to general information are very interesting reading. You could arguably get a full electronic library of classic occult texts in your head if you took the time to read every single link in their stickies.

10. Occultforums is very similar in spirit and style to the above forums, but sometimes gives you a different perspective.

I’m sure I’m missing great big chunks of excellent out in the Pagan sphere. If I were in my 20s I would be spending hours a day building an encyclopedic knowledge of what resources are available to me. This is my 30s – I’d like there to be more to me than my religion.

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