Twit.

Walking with the Enemy opens tonight.

I've been keeping an eye on twitter to see what the chatter about the movie is.
(How has it come to pass that my news-source-of-preference lately is a medium that limits dialogue to 140 characters? It's like reading just the headlines. And I'm OK with that?) (Who AM I?)

(For example, I was at the lake last night, and by the time I'd checked the breakers and confirmed that the septic pump was not working, it was after 8 pm.When I opened up my laptop, my facebook feed was full of status updates about swinging chandeliers and questions about earthquakes. I immediately went to twitter and got the scoop.)

(Which was, yes, there was an earthquake. It registered 6 point something and it's centre was in Port Hardy.)

(There were no swinging lights at the lake. So I missed the sensation of having the earth move beneath my feet.)

Where was I?

Right.

Twitter. Source of info.

So yes, up until Thursday, any tweets about WWTE have been sporadic and mostly informative or complimentary.
But the game changed on Thursday.
All the critics who've attended pre-screenings this month, posted their reviews on the internet on Thursday, the day before opening weekend. I guess that's to be expected.

There were both positive and negative reviews.
That's to be expected as well.

What I didn't expect was the way some (well, OK, two, in particular) review tweets/links were systematically 'retweeted' over and over again (like 200 within 3 minutes of the original tweet's appearance on the twitter feed.)

TWO HUNDRED TIMES in 3 minutes.
I guess if it was a positive review, I wouldn't be writing this post.
But it was a negative one. And someone wanted to be sure it was read.

I had my feed set to search "Walking with the Enemy" so it went nuts when a gazillion tweets about the movie got posted at once. I scrolled and scrolled and scrolled and it looked like this:

Different tweeters. EXACT SAME MESSAGE. Two hundred of them.

So I clicked on some of the profiles. WHO is posting these? What type of person?

Here's a random one:

"Suga" follows no one. So his/her feed is empty. It's not like they saw the original tweet come across their twitter feed.

And Suga has only 17 followers. (I'm not judging. I only have 40 myself.)
(It's not a popularity contest people.)

BUT Suga has tweeted OVER 92,000 tweets. HOLY HANNAH.



What is the point? Why would someone do this?


Want to know my thoughts are?

Actually, it's just one thought. And it's a bit of a conspiracy theory thought.

I think someone wanted to clog up the page that folks go to when they search "walking with the enemy" on twitter. They wanted to clog it up so effectively that it would take minutes (which, is, like, forever, in the tweet world) to scroll past the negative review. I think someone is a jerk.

It happened twice.
Two different times during the day.
Two different original tweets.
Both negative.
One from LA. One from NY.


Why?

Maybe this happens often? Maybe I'm too new to twitterdom to see the ugly underside of it? Maybe this is no big deal?

Whatever.
I did my part in fighting back.

I boldly retweeted three favorable reviews.
I posted every single good Q & A and positive review to JA's fan site.
And asked my Facebook friends to LIKE the WWTE page.
Go Jane Go.

(And, OK, I said a wee prayer fer this little movie. I called upon the Mighty Powers of Heaven to smite the bugger. Don't mess with my twitter feed.)

(No I didn't.)

(Well, yes I did have a word with Him, but it wasn't about twitter.)
(He is bigger than some rogue tweet campaign.)

(I simply asked that He protect this movie from people intending to do harm, and to protect Mark and Jonas and the rest of them from being discouraged. And if He could manage to fill the theatres, well, that'd be fine and dandy.)


So. My part is done.
(Well I should put my money where my mouth is and actually go see it after all this fuss.)
 *looks for passport and plans road trip to Seattle...

:)


In case you're interested, here's the latest trailer:










Thanks, Liberty Studios and cast for your commitment to excellence.



Three things I'm thankful for:

1. Bailey and Johnny had their (healthy and totally adorable) twin boys...

2. The lake. It was stunning this morning:

3. Turkey leftovers.

Blessings,

xo