Twitter

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It is ironic that given the very thing that brought Twitter broad public notice during 2008 was the ability of people to follow the Tweets of celebrities – that is, to be fans. Stargate Atlantis fandom arguably had the earliest presence back in 2007 when actor David Hewlett began tweeting.

In 2008, a number Supernatural fans began getting Twitter accounts. They often translocated with them the fannish relationships they had from other social network sites, and the first presence of Supernatural fandom on Twitter was primarily through these pre-established circles.

Over the first months of 2009, Twitter became a reproduction in miniature of the broader fannish netscape: some twitters set up like fan sites (@_supernatural_), or by media companies (@buddytv). The success of celebrity twitters was mirrored in a form of role-playing twitters both of the show characters (@DeanWinchester and @SamWinchester) as well as the actors (@Jensen_Ackles). These were more like LARP (live-action role playing) games than the traditional internet roleplays because of the interaction with people outside of the game. In the case of faux celebrity twitters, though, many Twitter followers assumed them to be the real thing and the line between rolee playing and impersonating blurred. In August 2009, the two major accounts "impersonating" Jensen and Jared were suspended from Twitter. Twitter now has a system whereby celebreties can have their accounts "verifed" to confirm their identity.

The immediacy of Twitter combined with the ability to tag posts with a subject was exploited in a new way for Supernatural fandom when, in March 2009, a couple of fans tweeted reports of events at the Salute to Supernatural L.A. 2009. As news of this spread across fan sites, people started following their updates.

For the next Con - the All Hell Breaks Loose Convention held in Sydney, Australia in April 2009, the Supernatural Wiki asked for people who may be tweeting from the Con to list their Twitter name at the Con page on the SuperWiki. In addition, it was suggested that a tag (#ahbl) was used in Tweets, which meant people didn't have to “follow” every individual twittering, they could just search for tweets containing the tag. It was hugely successful, even though in Australia tweets cannot be updated via SMS from phones, only directly via the internet.

Tweeting has now become usual practice at Cons. By using the tag, fans can not only follow events live from the Con, by using the tag, the search stream acts as a virtual chat room. At Asylum 2009, the tag #asylm was so popular it hit the trending topics list for Twitter a number of times over the weekend.

Jim Beaver was the first Supernatural actor on Twitter - not surprisingly as Jim had long been active on both MySpace and Facebook.

In May 2009, actor Misha Collins started a Twitter and this drew many more Supernatural fans to the site. Misha has used his Twitter as a form of role playing by creating an on-line persona whose followers are known as Misha's Minions.

Trending Topics

In September 2009, @SuperWiki started ending tweets with #luciferiscoming, and suggested fans do the same as a mischievious way to get attention for the show. In the 24 hours leading up to the premiere of Season 5, #luciferiscoming reached number 1 on the trending charts before being censored, due to its popularity sparking religious conflict on Twitter [1], primarily due to the reaction of Puff Daddy (@iamdiddy who has over a million followers) who, unaware of the context of #luciferiscoming, started a #Godishere tweet in retaliation. Other trending topics such as #supernatural and #inkripkewetrust also reached high on the list.

Just before the show aired Misha Collins joined the game, suggesting fans used #PDIDDYISSCAREDOFHISTV.

Supernatural Tweeters

@SuperWiki - Supernatural Wiki - news, trivia, pics and still spoiler free!

Fan and media sites

Celebrities
These Twitters are all verified as authentic. Jared and Jensen do not have Twitter accounts.

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