Twitter fame lets city leaders deliver ... sweet tweets

Social media can bring a certain sort of fame to civic leaders like Rob Ford and Norm Kelly, which doesn’t make their actual job any easier.

Thestar.com
Jan. 6, 2016
By Edward Keenan

1. On Wednesday, for much of the day, the Twitter account @TorontoRobFord carried on a continuous pop-culture-infused banter.

2. Some thoughts on this, in Twitter-friendly-format. (Or as Canadian New Republic writer Jeet Heer would call it, “A Twitter Essay.”)

3. Ford zinged @CityNews (“how’s it feel to have 1/4 the followers of @CP24?”) & offered a Glee-club-perfect opinion of High School Musical.

4. He also pulled an answer to the meaning of life from A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (“42”), and even critiqued the current mayor:

5. (Zombie apocalypse hiding spot? “Wherever @JohnTory is keeping his budget savings. Nobody’s even heard of the place so it must be safe.”)

6. The quick wit, pop-culture references and the fact it was on Twitter led many to conclude it was not Ford himself doing the writing.

7. So he Tweeted a photo of himself, apparently in a hospital room, holding up a current newspaper.

8. So even though it still seems likely someone (maybe assistant Dan Jacobs) was helping with jokes, Ford was in on it. The bigger Q: Why?

9. One obvious answer: “Stuck at the hospital, having fun and killing time.” But for a man who’s barely ever used a computer: why Twitter?

10. And: why suddenly adopt the persona of a smart-ass Buzzfeed intern, when the Ford plain-folks anti-sophisticate brand is so well known?

11. Obvious A.: @norm.

12. Norm Kelly, the septuagenarian erstwhile acting mayor/current city councillor has famously attracted new levels of fame on Twitter.

13. His hip-to-the-hippity-hop, rap-beef intervening, meme-sharing social media persona made him part of Drake’s extended entourage.

14. Which has earned him 225,000 followers from around North America, most of them young, many of whom call him “Dad.”

15. @Drake calls Toronto “The 6,” himself “6 God” (among other nicknames), and calls @norm “The 6 Dad.”

16. This new celebrity for an old politician (an MP in the first prime minister Trudeau’s caucus) has fascinated local media.

17. A new Toronto Life story tackles Kelly’s unlikely “street-savvy superstar” status. And circles the same question that brought us here:

18. Why? To what end?

19. “You’re cracking up a kid reading his phone in Oklahoma! Your possibly-young-assistant-assisted witticism is getting loads of retweets!”

20. In what way is that useful to a local politician? Is it in any way a productive part of political communication?

21. Seems the answer is it’s not related to city council business at all. (Obviously!) Just larfs, and chasing celebrity for its own sake.

22. Is that bad? What do most people do on social media? Their job? Serving society? No. Killing time, making jokes, finding distraction.

23. And many seek the validation of having their jokes and ideas shared widely. The satisfaction of having followers. The rush of celebrity.

24. That has nothing to do with the job a politician is elected to do. But it has everything to do with why many people go into politics.

25. The magazine profile gets right at this: @norm (the handle) was born after Norm (the politician) stepped out of the acting-mayor spotlight.

26. Kelly is quoted talking about his Twitter persona as “fame” that takes hard work to sustain.

27. Rob Ford’s always been a politician with a seemingly pathological need for validation. He called people on the phone at all hours.

28. He called them “Ford Nation,” invited them to his Mom’s backyard for burgers. Showed up at their houses to hear their problems.

29. Maybe, if health and diminished political juice take opportunities for validation away, he can find some, like Norm, in web celebrity?

30. Or maybe he was just playing for a few hours one day. And Twitter-types were happy to play along.

31. Either way, this (in the cases of both @norm and @TorontoRobFord) enrages some people. Twitter users and writers alike.

32. Partly because somewhat conservative Kelly and uber-Conservative Ford enrage those people just by continuing to hold office.

33. But also, it feels like a politician ought to direct their energy to serving those they’re elected to serve, not chasing RTs and likes.

34. Some politicians really do use social media as another platform to communicate with the public and constituents about public policy!

35. And yet, those politicians wallow in relative obscurity.

36. Meanwhile, the only tangible political benefit to @norm-style fame on Twitter is that reporters use Twitter. And report on that fame.

37. While @TorontoRobFord was Tweeting, the budget committee was meeting, and the mayor was making an announcement.

38. Meanwhile, Social Planning Toronto was holding a press conference talking about revenue tools.

39. On one hand, if Rob Ford wants to ponder horse-sized ducks and debate teen musicals, he’s not mucking up that important city business.

40. On the other hand, what have I spent 40 tweets worth of words on today? Maybe when politicians get distracted playing comedian ...

41. ... the joke is really only on those of us who get distracted watching them do it.