Nobody is better at Twitter than Rivers Cuomo. His account is a beautifully compelling, hilarious mix of the following:
– Perpetual self-aggrandising (“I rock.” “I’d say I’m up there with the greats.” “I like the Weezer.” “A humble legend.” “weezer is the most legendary band of this century.... in fact--dare i say it--of all time”)
– Shoutouts (“White and Nerdy. Hell yeah.” “love u Kurt.”)
– Micro-updates (“i need a good netflix show” “I saw a great production of 'Romeo & Juliet' in Akron last night” “Kyoko made me an amazing lunch of dates, brie, peanuts, crackers, bread, marmalade, olives, eggs”)
– Weezer references (“DID ANYONE TRY THE FISH?!?!”, “I DONT CARE BOUT THAT” “Lol Canada border patrol just asked me if I had my hash pipe”)
– Confusingly sexual quasi-private messages (see below)
– Total trolling of fans (see below that)
The most compelling thing he does, the most maddening, intriguing, confusing tweets, are the ones that seem deliberately intended to read like misposted DMs – non-sequiturs that are either replies to very personal messages or, more likely, tweets written to sound exactly like replies to very personal messages. They’re enigmatic, often sexual in nature, and assuming they’re intended to drive fans nuts, do exactly what they’re meant to.
If, say, a politician posted the tweet “I send you my wiener please respond” his career would be destroyed. When Rivers Cuomo does it, it’s all part of his mystique. They feel like a treat, a glimpse inside the private life of a rockstar, even though the odds that they’re real (Rivers is happily married) are slim to none.
It’s the little details about them – the emphasis on the word “any” in “Feel free to distract me ANY time! :)”, the “too” in “I find ways to spank myself too! It’s nice to know I’m not alone!” that make them raise so many more questions than they answer. He’s recently sent a few demands for “hand pics”, and come on, that’s intriguing as hell.
“Rivers Cuomo is the best thing on the internet” says Tash Goldstone, stand-up comedian and Rivers superfan. “Do other rockstars tweet about how useful vegetable spiralisers are? I don't think so. I just love the mystery behind his tweets. Are they his real thoughts? Is he tweeting random things he overhears? Is he parodying himself? The only reason I’m on the internet is so that one day Rivers Cuomo can like one of my posts. After that I will delete my account, go off grid and live in a field somewhere.”
He might be employing the same mastery of overheard conversations, brainfarts, brief thoughts, disconnected thinking and little catchy snippets of words to Twitter as he does to songwriting – many of his lyrics are pieced together from small phrases he scribbles down, matched together based on syllable count and cadence and pieced into vague stories.
Either way, Rivers Cuomo posting tweets like “I’m still thinking with my willy” is something to be applauded.