Sunday, December 21, 2014

"More Like 'Dick Jonas'" And Other Top Vertigo Shtick Tweets of 2014

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I don't know if you know this, but Vertigo Shtick has a Twitter account. It's pretty good - a mixture of witticisms, critical and cultural commentary both thorough and off-the-cuff, the rare pop-related joke or meme, some links, and the occasional balls-out take-no-prisoners rant. It's quite entertaining. You should check it out.


Earlier this year, Twitter introduced Twitter Analytics, a fabulous new tool that shows in depth data on your individual tweets beyond the simple retweets and favorites count. As I discovered, retweets and favorites can be a poor indication of how widely one's tweets actually reach, and the data provides a fascinating look at the bizarre, often unpredictable, and sometimes entirely baffling popular life of the tweet. So I decided to compile my Greatest Hits from the year (although analytics only began August 1, so "year" is loosely defined) and take the navel-gazing self indulgence of the End of Year list toward its logical extreme.

Enjoy. And follow me on Twitter, why don't you?



Madonna had a pretty shitty day earlier this month, but from all that fertilizer sprouted my most recent hit. (557 impressions)

Spotify asked followers for one fact from their 2014, and this was mine. (578)

I spent one hot, lonely night watching the Sandra Bullock/Melissa McCarthy flick The Heat and it was so good I had to tweet about it, though mostly, in an attempt to maintain some topical focus, about the soundtrack, which also features Angel Haze, Azealia Banks, and Kreayshawn. (604)

This uplifting moment of existential confidence didn't elicit any comforting or sympathetic responses, but it did still apparently make an impression. (617)

The spastic, attitude-packed work of L.A. choreographer Tricia Miranda (Kimberly Cole, among others) has always impressed me as someone who has literally zero dance ability, and her recent choreo vid for Nicki Minaj's "Anaconda" was no exception. (650)


FXX ran a two-week marathon called "Every Simpsons Ever", airing chronologically all 25 completed seasons of the beloved animated sitcom and offering the heartwarming opportunity for us to watch the series together at the same time in the age of Twitter (much credit to the network's excellently-run Twitter account). Here were my most popular contribitions.

Re "Look Who's Coming to Criticize Dinner" (729)
Re: "HOMR" (852)
Re "Two Bad Neighbors" (893)
Also re "Two Bad Neighbors" (1,720)
Re "A Streetcar Named Marge" (2,662)


A true story about the hazards of mixing good music and public transportation, featuring new pop-rap duo Rich White Ladies. (934)

British pop supervillain Jessie J performed on some show in the UK one night, and the reaction on social media was telling. (945)

V Magazine livened up the aging days of summer with a photo spread of a very pregnant Christina Aguilera in a tight, see-through white dress. (966)

Slate writer Dan Kois asked an intriguingly difficult question in August and I rather liked what I came up with; so, it turned out, did he. (1,103)

One of my favorite new shows of the year is Comedy Central's "At Midnight," the first decent television show designed by SEO experts. Its big audience participation game, #HashtagWars, means it trends nearly every night it airs. Here are a few of my more popular contributions. (571, 613, and 1,236, respectively)


As in years past, I live-tweeted the Popjustice 20 Quid Prize deliberations in a London pub from way over at my desk in Los Angeles. As always, my readership grew as the night went along, and a few individual tweets broke the 1000 mark.

Simple news updates are often quite popular. (1,168)
 This one was included in Popjustice's official "As It Happened" Storify post. (2,794)
This was an attempt at a fully informative summary of the final result. (3,546)
But this one still got a more attention. (4,068)


Have I mentioned that I want to have sexual relations with that pop star, Mister Jonas? (1,353)

This came on the heels of the Jennifer Lawrence nude photo hack, which seems kind of low stakes now but still let me get in a dig at Slate and Ariana Grande at the same time. (1,442)

I went on a long Twitter diatribe about Taylor Swift's thin-skinned childishness and its deleterious impact on young, loyal and impressionable stars like Lorde, whose overreaction to a rather harmless Diplo tweet about Swift I felt made her look bad, created inter-artist friction that didn't really exist (or need to), and should have been gracefully dismissed by the 1989 songstress. But considering Swift's laughably dramatic elevation of what seems to have been a pretty reasonable creative and business situation involving Katy Perry (to whom Diplo has casually been romantically linked, although who hasn't) and some tour dancers into an overwrought Rolling Stone article conversation point and even - wait for it - a dis track on her new album! This was my conclusion. (7,515)

I was genuinely wowed by Marina and the Diamonds' October single release, "Froot" - and apparently I'm not alone. Even Marina herself gave this one a Favorite. (7,846)

And finally, my annual commitment to reporting on the Popjustice 20 Quid Prize have nothing to do with how many tons of hits they tend to get off a link or retweet from the master himself. Nothing whatsoever. (14,788)


And that's the best of the year that was, or the last bit of it anyway - thanks, Twitter analytics, and all of you folks out there who see or even interact with my tweets (hey buddy, eyes up here). I look forward to seeing how new analytics tools and my own increasing experience impact next year's numbers continuing the Twitter conversation with the music world in 2015. Don't forget to follow along!
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