Thank You, Twitter. I Owe You My Life.

I’m not one to get overly sentimental, I’m on Twitter after all and overt displays of sentimentality are generally frowned upon, mocked and dragged, but I recently hit 30,000 followers and I find myself nostalgic for my early days (and years) on Twitter when I was a waitress trying to make it in the big city as a writer and not just a writer trying to make it in the big city as a writer.

Like so many people at first I didn’t “get it.” I’ll never forget my first experiment with Twitter, it was August 14th, 2009 and I was sick in bed during Ashton Kutcher's great race against CNN to become the Twitter King. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Was a massive journalistic institution actually having to pander to and compete with the guy from Dude, Where’s My Car? It was like the equivalent of watching The New York Times go head-to-head with UsWeekly. Why would they even bother sinking to that level?  Yet they did. 

And so did I.

I quickly got to work taking Twitter for a test ride, using it as a weapon of mass irritation and managed to alienate and get blocked by Ashton and his cougar wife within minutes of mocking the ridiculousness of it all.  (I said that I gave them five years before the marriage ended—they made it four.) Holy shit! They were listening to and pandering to me now! They actually care, one way or another, what I think? That’s pathetic! I’m just a loser with 14 followers! Has the whole world lost its mind? (Flash forward to now: Yes.) Ashton later called it a “social media revolution”. I called it, "Another Sign of the Impending Apocalypse."

During my Twitter ranting, I also managed to piss off a couple of Internet hipsters, online snobs and self-proclaimed trolls in the process. I honestly don’t even try. This kind of repelling effect can only come naturally.

I didn’t keep tweeting though. I managed to offend so many people, so quickly on my first go, I figured it was probably wise to stay off, which I managed to do for another three years while I traveled the world. 

CUT TO: May 14, 2013

I’ve recently returned to America from abroad. I’m unemployed, drinking alcoholically and for some reason, I’m drawn back to the internet Hotel California like a moth to a flame. 

Suddenly — after years of squatting on my handle, yet simultaneously hating Twitter because I didn’t get it — something clicks. Twitter says what Facebook is thinking. This is my tribe-less tribe of cynical writers. I study it for two weeks; reading every scientific study I can get my hands on; observing dynamics, pecking orders and strategy. After I realize Twitter is simply a giant High School for adults, I feel ready to engage. So I do. I engage in the same way I did when I was the New Girl in four different High Schools — I use hyper-sexuality, display party girl antics and excel in outrageous behavior.

But Twitter is a hard game of wit. Shock and awe don’t work. Unless you’re a porn star, using your sexuality is looked down upon and the game of getting followers seems to elude me.

“I don’t get it.” I whine to my good friend @misshandstands. This was about  5 years ago, I am buzzed (because I was still drinking at the time).

“You need to engage,” she advises. “Talk to people.”

“Okay,” I say. I look down at my phone. I’m not sure why I even see the Tweet, I don’t even follow Dane Cook, but it says, “Girls suck at Vine.” I don’t even know what Vine is, but his sexist comment irritates me.

Obviously, I responded with, “You suck at comedy. How ‘bout that, asshole?” and you can read all about how Dane Cook retweeted me, blew up my mentions, can’t take a joke and proceeded to block me on my Medium page. 

I had 200 followers at the time. Overnight it tripled. That hit of dopamine was intoxicating and it wasn’t long before I was fully addicted to trolling celebrities and posting pics of my bum, so much so that I wrote the “12 Steps of Twitterholics Anonymous” but it was too late for me. I was hooked.

But I owe Twitter, well, pretty much everything.

I was on Twitter steadily for about six months before I quit drinking in the fall of 2013. Nothing specifically happened on Twitter (like what happens when you’re on Ambien apparently), but I could only make so many jokes about what an alcoholic I was before I had to take a step back a say, “Oh shit, I’m an alcoholic.” Other factors were at play but the evidence of my drinking very plainly laid before my eyes in ones and zeroes made a pretty compelling case for giving it up. 

I was out East right before I quit, ping-ponging up and down the 95 corridor and careening towards rock bottom. I did @JaySuch’s podcast and told him after that I thought I had a problem. He gave me the number of an anonymous person in LA that he knew was sober via Twitter. I reached out to said person and they told me, “if I can do it, anyone can” directed me to some meetings and quite possibly saved my life. I've been sober ever since.

Before my website, Phetasy.com, crashed and burned I would link some of my bloggy musings on Twitter. In April of 2015 my Twitter friend @home_halfway said he knew the comedy editor at Playboy, put me in touch, I pitched a story and he sent me to the Culture Editor at the time, @JoeDonatelli, who gave me my first writing gig, my first real break, which would lead to a weekly column, which led to writing the Playboy Advisor in the magazine for two years. Joe is one of the greatest editors I've ever worked with and he set the bar high right out of the gates.

This credit opened up doors for me to write for other publications. I met my TV script manager on Twitter. I met one of my mentors who would introduce me to my lit agent on Twitter. 95% of my Patrons come from Twitter. 

Basically, I owe my entire fucking livelihood as a writer to this sunken place but that’s not even what I love the most about it.

The thing I love the most are the connections I’ve made with people all over the world. I’ve made true friends in real life, friends I can count on to be there for me when I'm in distress. During the 2016 election, feeling completely ideologically isolated and politically homeless, I found a group of freethinking trolls like @ComfortablySmug that took me in and sheltered me during the great war.

When I was literally stranded on an island over the summer at a party house, feeling like I wanted to drink after nearly four years of sobriety, it was my Twitter following that rallied and told me to stay strong. They saved me that night, the hand that reached out in the darkness and cared when I felt isolated. This has often been my experience with Twitter.

A lot has been written about how horrible social media is, how toxic it is for women and minorities and basically, well, everyone. This is true. But my experience is that the good people have far outweighed the bad. My “Twitter strategy” has always been just to be authentic; get followers one joke, one tweet, one titty pic at a time, the good old fashioned way, by connecting to people on a human level.

All that being said, I have to monitor my usage because it is extraordinarily addictive. I took the app off my phone and take weekends off. The junkie in me cannot resist the dopamine hit and the trickster in me can’t resist making fun of everything, sometimes to my own detriment. I’m fully aware that I might tweet something, get on a plane someday and land to the hashtag #HasBridgetPhetasyLanded and have my entire life ruined. 

But until that day comes, thank you for reading and sharing my silly tweets. Thank you for reading my columns and sharing them. Thank you for contributing your wisdom and your honest opinions when I reach out and solicit feedback. Thank you for subscribing to my Patreon. Thank you for agreeing to disagree, for calling me on my bullshit, for loving me even though I often make no sense. Twitter is where I'm trying to work some shit out. I don't pretend to have answers, so thank you for allowing me to grow and fuck up and make an ass of myself here.

I might have a blue check and a following, but I’m always that girl with the naked avi and 14 followers at heart, throwing monkey wrenches into the machine. I have no idea where we’re all headed next on this wild ride. I know it will be interesting and you can be damn sure I’m taking you all with me.