The weird and wonderful world of academic Twitter
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Shit Academics Say, an account making pithy remarks about academic life, garnered more than 100,000 followers before its author, Nathan Hall, decided to take a well-earned sabbatical. Nein Quarterly, a decidedly hard-to-pigeon-hole mixture of snark, sarcasm, and philosophy, has become (in) famous for its short and sharp quips on everything from current affairs to language. Its author, Eric Jarosinski, was formerly a professor of German at an Ivy League university, but is now dedicated full time to the project.
I do my best proofreading after I hit send.
— Shit Academics Say (@Academics Say) If you need me, I’ll be wondering why. Then how. Then for how much longer.
— Nein. (@Nein Quarterly) Fake Elsevier pokes fun at the traditional academic publishing model, while others, like Shit My Reviewers Say, dig into the publishing process itself.
Elsevier’s new sharing policy allows you to verbally explain your scholarly work to badgers and other woodland creatures. #Elsevier Shares
— Fake Elsevier (@Fake Elsevier) “I am afraid this manuscript may contribute not so much towards the field’s advancement as much as toward its eventual demise.”
— ShitMyReviewersSay (@Your Paper Sucks) Even the Oxford Comma, of which I am a strident advocate, has its own account.
Dear world, Feel free to use me. Sincerely, Oxford Comma
— Oxford Comma (@IAm Oxford Comma) If these people (and an thropomorphised punctuation) represent the best of academic Twitter, the now-defunct @Grad Elitism represented the worst of it.
The account had managed to attract almost 40,000 followers by reposting others’ jokes without attribution (ie, plagiarising). A self-appointed watchdog sprang into action, calling out the plagiarism and getting the offending account shut down in a matter of weeks. This brief campaign was no doubt buoyed by the recent news that Twitter is clamping down on “joke theft”.
During the early days of my foray into Twitter, I noticed that one of my followers would often retweet things he “overheard” from students on Twitter. Students indeed say the funniest things, apparently unaware or unconcerned of the highly public nature of their musings, so we started a dedicated account.
Occasionally more amusing or concerning than students own ramblings are some of the things they quote their professors as saying:
Things my professor says: “I drink like a fish. I can drink you all under the table!” (with the straightest face ever) #gradschool
— Gina C. (@ginamc) Papers should be like a woman’s skirt. Short enough to be interesting but long enough to cover the subject. -My Anthropology professor
— Ali Grow (@ajgrow) My music professor makes us stay after class and play twister with him to make up attendance. Dead serious. I find a problem with this, no?
— Hailey Beesley (@Hailey Beez11) Finally, there are some dark corners of academic Twitter that don’t make any sense to me at all. The profile of one @SofiaOrden looks like any other student Twitter page, yet posts nothing but a neverending stream of tweets advertising university courses (about one every 5 minutes, over 300,000 in total).
She is then instantly retweeted by 20-100 similarly baffling accounts. Clearly this is all automated, but by whom and to what end remains unclear to me. Answers on a postcard.
The academic Twittersphere is a big place – sadly I couldn’t mention all my favourites. If you want to spice up your timeline, you can check out my lists of funny academics and other cool academic stuff.
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