Weinergate: Allow Me to Explain How the Internet Works

So, this is happening:

New York Congressman Anthony Weiner said on Wednesday that he did not send a lewd photo over his Twitter account but cannot be sure that the photo was not of him.

"It certainly doesn't look familiar to me, but I don't want to say with certitude to you something that I don't know to be the certain truth," Weiner told CNN in an interview.

"I didn't send any twitter picture," he said, adding that the photo might have been manipulated.

Weiner has said his account was hacked when a lewd photo of a man in bulging boxer briefs was tweeted to a 21-year-old female college student in Washington state over the weekend. ... The student, Gennette Cordova, issued a statement to the New York Daily News that denied she personally knew Weiner but said, "I am a fan."

Here is why I think the news coverage of this story is painfully ridiculous.

I follow politics on Twitter a lot, so I have a pretty good idea of how this corner of Internet fandom works. When we’re not watching the news and debating the issues, we’re joking, arguing and sometimes outright flirting with our favourite media personalities – and there are intricate networks of nicknames, catchphrases and inside jokes for each of them.

For example, Chris Hayes, Washington editor of The Nation Magazine, is known on the Twitters as “Cutie” or “Lambchop” depending on who you ask. Anderson Cooper’s black tee shirt has its own fan club, as do Rachel Maddow’s belt buckle and Keith Olbermann’s purple tie. There is an entire subculture of jokes about the ubiquitous Cialis and Viagra commercials during primetime cable news which I probably shouldn’t go into right now. And we are constantly – constantly – referring to politicians and media personalities as our boyfriends/girlfriends and saying we love them/want to make out with them/”need a cigarette” when they make a particularly good argument.

In other words, fandom is weird. But there are two reasons why this is important here. First of all, this whole thing is a game and only the most tone-deaf and clueless people on Twitter don’t realise that. Public figures can interact with female college students on Twitter and even laugh at the boyfriend/girlfriend jokes and still be appalled at the idea of having an extramarital affair with any of them. Sometimes they even interact with female college students because – shocking idea – these young women are smart. Or funny. Or, you know, more than just sex objects to fantasise about.

Now if Congressman Weiner really did send a lewd picture to a fan, he is obviously way over the line and deserves whatever public shaming he gets (and the woman should be left the hell alone). But here’s the second reason why understanding fandom is important: if you are famous and you are on Twitter, your followers are always watching you. There are people who monitor their heroes’ profile pages every day, analysing every tweet and waiting for the slightest signs of life so they can try to get their attention. (What? I don’t do that. I do not. Okay, sometimes. Shut up.)

I find it very difficult to believe that a picture of Congressman Weiner’s crotch appeared in his Twitter feed and none of his fans noticed it. Even if it was only there for a second, anyone who follows both the Congressman and the college student would have seen it on their timeline – and that can easily be hundreds of people in time zones all around the world.

If I know fandom as well as I think I do, his fans should have gone absolutely bonkers about it. Friends of mine should have gone bonkers about it. If one of the celebrities I admire had done this (please don’t) I would not be at all surprised to be woken up in the middle of the night by a text message demanding that I get my ass online because there is EPIC SHIT HAPPENING OMG. But the only person who seems to have noticed the tweet at all is an Internet troll who has been harassing Congressman Weiner and the woman in question for weeks.

Anyone who is savvy about the dynamics of Twitter, celebrities and fans should have immediate doubts about this story – and that’s before you wade into the technical discussions about just how easy it is to hack a photo sharing account. But the mainstream press are too objective and sophisticated to bother with such trivial things, so they’re taking the accusation at face value.