So what would be your first reaction, say, if you happened upon a website that really looked like Twitter, but appeared to have been built in the last two days, and has an unbelievably retarded name like someone had taken an axe to the word "Twitter" and wedged "God" into it? And has a total of 6 users, all of whom say things like, "Sit Back, Relax and Enjoy Dive Judgment," or "Thinking about that STAGGERING event from which we are all inevitably on the docket; the JUDGMENT of CHRIST"? You, you optimistic, naive Christian, wouldn't believe that such a thing could be done with a straight face, and that, from the looks of things, some clever hoaxster had played upon all of our worst fears of Christian mimicry. You would blog about this hilarious joke, liberally handing its masterminds props and lulz.
Until whoever did the axing and wedging emailed you and was like, "Um, what are you talking about? Joke?"
You would freeze.
That didn't exactly happen, but that's what almost happened when a sharp-eyed reader name Carl tipped us off to Godwitter, on which the fictional scenario above is based. Except the website part isn't fiction. There really is a website. It's registered to a guy named Greg Gordon from a Canadian website called SermonIndex, one of the principal posters. It really is called "Godwitter," it really has about 5 users, and it really is loaded with strangely 19th century-sounding spiritual status updates, and it really isn't a joke. Or, ahem, isn't meant to be:
Of course what is so freakishly odd about this isn't the fact that people are sharing scriptures or sermon links (hey, those occasionally show up on my Twitter), but that's precisely the point: you can do all of that on Twitter, and even follow only your pastor if you like. Or, I don't know, GO TO CHURCH, where people typically go to find sermons and spiritual encouragement.
And really, even if you were convinced such a service would be useful to some ten people somewhere in the woods of Canada … Godwitter? Let us hear you say that word about five times and listen to the sound of your own voice. How much of your dignity is left? Next, say the phrase, "post a witter" out loud once. If you feel like you just uttered the linguistic equivalent of the phrase "hock a loogie," you're not alone. Something about "sharing witters with the world" sounds, at best, like spreading a horrible plague.
We could go through the high-minded spiel about Why Christians Shouldn't Do This, but I have a feeling the point has been sufficiently made. We've been through it with GodTube, and ShoutLife and myCCM before. If you don't understand what I'm talking about, watch the rest of the terrible videos. Sometimes this stuff is funny, as in the curious case of The Bike King and the Ten Commandments. This just hurts.
David Sessions
David Sessions is the founding editor of Patrol. He covers religion for Newsweek and The Daily Beast, and is a graduate student in the Draper Program for Humanities and Social Thought at New York University. He can be reached at hdavidsessions at gmail dot com.
13 Responses to “Godwitter”: It Was Only a Matter of Time
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ugh. that’s all i have to say.
LOL can I pronounce it “Go Dwitter”??
Last I checked, freedom of religion didn’t mean freedom to violate trademark and copyright protections and blatantly rip off a website idea.
Pass the crackers.
There once was a website called ThySpace.com. It lasted about a month. I met the owners of it, they told me nothing was going to stop them from doing God’s work through ThySpace.com. Then they got a cease and desist order from MySpace. And now they are all gone.
Perhaps “Godwitter” sounds different in Canadian?
I guess “Yah-Witter” was a little too sacred. Sorry, I could not help myself.
I assure you, it sounds just as stupid in “Canadian.”
Yes, the person behind this—as were those behind GodTube, ShoutLife, and perhaps the whole CCM enterprise—is creating an embarrassingly dorky Christian ghetto precisely in their attempt to ‘engage culture.’
However, I find that some of David’s critiques of Godwitter could easily translate over to Twitter itself:
1) Is there anything more dignified about sending a ‘tweet’ than sending a ‘witter’?
2) Does Twitter provide information any less banal than Godwitter?
3) If we are urging the people using Godwitter to go to church to find spiritual encouragement, should we not also urge the people using Twitter (Christian or not Christian) to meet their friends at a coffee shop or bar to build relationships and exchange information, instead of using another online forum to do so?
I mostly agree with Katelyn. Most of the criticism above is pretty easily transferred to Twitter. Exactly how dignified is “Twitter” or “tweeting”? Not exactly the euphonious ring of sophistication there…
Then again, Christian appropriations of lousy pop cultural elements are always somehow more lame than what they imitate, no matter how bad the original is: more saccharine, more angsty-earnest, more self-serious (except that the treatment Twitter on Patrol has been pretty damn self-serious). And while “tweeting” sounds ridiculously undignified, “wittering” is actual even worse. Elmer Fudd v. Tweety Bird (I know, captain obvious and all).
This is worse than the epic fail that is r-igg.com.
(R-igg was meant to be a right-wing alternative to alleged rampant liberalism on Digg.)
I’m laughing as hard as you are from my internet-loaded tree here in the woods of Canada
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