Annise Parker & Twitter: Break Out The Fail Whale (Updated)

By Richard Connelly Tue., May 25 2010 at 7:01 AM

Categories: Political Animals, Social Distortion

Pin It

Fail Whale, thy name is Annise

In her campaign for mayor, Annise Parker promised to be deep into the whole social-media thing.

Annise Parker has more Twitter followers than all of the Mayoral candidates combined. In order to maintain this robust network in one central location, the campaign will pursue a joint Twitter broadcasting strategy where both campaign staff and Parker will continue to Tweet from the @AnniseParker feed. All Tweets coming directly from Annise will end with an "-A" signature to make clear who is responsible for the tweet.

Impressive.

So why does her Tweeting suck since taking office? She just used the twitterverse and then tossed it aside like some one-night stand? Are her 3,264 followers doing the Walk of Shame?

Let's examine her most recent tweets.

Enjoying the Houston Ballet at Miller Theater. Beautiful night. Wonderful performances. -A

A perfectly fine tweet. Much better than "what I had for lunch" or the classic then-why-are-you-tweeting "I am SOOOO busy," so respek. Of course, it's the newest tweet on her account and it's dated May 8, which does seem a wee moldy in the Twitter world, but hey. You take what you can get.

Saw Wonderland at the Alley Theatre this afternoon. Fun play! Superbowl party tonight. Good game! All in all a good day.-A

A pattern seems to be emerging: a short description, then a two-word review of the -- say what, now? The Super Bowl? It may indeed have been a "Good game!" but it was so freaking long ago we forgot who played. Oh yeah, the Saints.

Sorry, we have to question anyone who awards the same number of exclamation points to both a thrilling SB upset and yet another tepid Frank Wildhorn musical.

Just finished the Rice U. Loop. Great day to walk -A

Dated January 30. So that's three tweets in the past four months. Surely Parker has an opinion on Lost, or Justin Bieber or something.

On the way to Bob Mosbacher funeral. Worked for him for 18 years. An old school gentleman in the best sense of that word.-A

Funeral tweets? At least she didn't do it from the pew. ("Eulogy just finished. Good job! Great day to bury someone -A.")

Its been a while since I tweeted. The last month has been too intensely busy to convey, but I can see my team starting to jell.-A

Hmmmm...this tweet-apology came less than 24 hours after the tweet before it. It was three weeks into her term: Was she still trying to string the twitterverse along, saying a day between tweets is such a pathetic output that she needs to apologize for it? `Cause let's just say her pace has slowed down a whole lot, and there ain't no apologies anymore.

If there's nothing on the Glee finale, we'll know we've been had.

Update: The mayor has responded to @hairballsnews, our Twitter account (and why aren't you following us there, anyway?):

@anniseparker Richard: whats a GLEE?-A

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Weekly Newsletter: Our weekly feature stories, movie reviews, calendar picks and more - minus the newsprint and sent directly to your inbox.