The Hipster Dad: twitter

Monday, June 4, 2012

So unless you live under a rock you've probably heard of "Honest Toddler" by now. If not Honest Toddler is a twitter account that is apparently run by a child with a big attitude and comedic wit to match. His profile reads "Not potty trained. Not trying." which is what my own kid's twitter account would read if she had one.

With just under 400 tweets since May this toddler has already gained a following of 13,000+ and was nice enough to answer some questions for us over the weekend. So enjoy the interview and if you don't already follow him to do here. Also follow his blog here.

THD: So when did you start Honest Toddler and was there any specific catalyst for doing so?

HT: On May 1stish. My catalyst was not having an outlet to express myself. Mommy & me art classes are apparently too much to ask.

THD: You now have over 13,000+ followers! Did you expect it to get so popular so quickly?

HT: No I didn't. But most everything I do is met with thunderous applause from my parents so I'm not surprised.

THD: With so many followers I assume you get a lot of feedback. Have you ever received anything that was especially rememberable, good or bad? (hate mail, fan mail, etc.)

HT: Someone asked my mom to stop drinking. She laughed and took another (big) sip.

THD: So I have to ask... Who are you when you aren't portraying the sassiest / funniest toddler on the Internet?

HT: Running, fighting invisible ninjas, unwrapping sanitary napkins, not eating, relieving myself, sleeping-ish, crying, laughing uncontrollably, and hurting myself.

THD: Tell us a bit about your family.

HT: I have two parents, their ages are unknown. Most people don't know that I actually do have a sibling who I prefer not to talk about. This child is older and quite rude/selfish.

THD: Honest Toddler's tweets are told from the perspective of a toddler w/ a Stay at Home Mom – is this from experience?

HT: I don't understand the question so I'm going to say yes.

THD: What does Honest Toddler want to be when he grows up?

HT: Trucks.

THD: What are Honest Toddler's top 3 favorite childrens books?

HT: Bluberries for Sal (with no pages skipped), anything Eric Carle, and Strega Nona (that witch is crazy!)

Do you make up all of the tweets or do your followers sometimes email you ideas?

HT: I make them up.

THD: I noticed you started blogging in addition to the tweets over at http://honesttoddler.wordpress.com which is awesome. Do you have any other plans for the project in the future?

HT: This afternoon I plan to open the fridge 7 or 8 times.

What are your top 3 favorite twitter accounts (or blogs) to follow?

Weird Horse, Bad Luck Brian, Condescending Wonka :)

Friday, July 15, 2011

Social media is a great tool for keeping in touch with family, networking with clients from around the globe and sharing your opinions and lives with people you don't even know but can it get in the way of real life? My family and I are exploring that theory with what we are calling "Disconnect Days". Don't get me wrong, Lauren and I are big supporters of all things social media, both having (multiple) accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google+ and of course Blogger but with 5-10 websites and accounts to check and update daily it begins to take up a lot of time! A normal night for us consist of listening to records, having a beer and enjoying one anothers time with our noses nestled sweetly in our.......iPhones. "Look at this cute photo Adriana just instagrammed!" or "WOW I can't believe what AJ just tweeted!" are normal conversation pieces around our home. Now I find nothing wrong with this, social networking is fun and especially useful for me for my freelance and business ventures but theres comes a point where you need to step back and smell the roses instead of putting vintage filters on a picture of them for your friends to post comments on.

"No time for cameras, we'll use our eyes instead" - Matt Johnson & Kim Schifino

Our first Disconnect Day (DD) was last Sunday and it happened to fall on a day that we had planned a cookout & pool party at our house. So the night before I texted everyone who would be attending and said "Tomorrow is Lauren and I's first disconnect day, long story but we won't be reachable by email or phone so the time is 1PM and you know the address see you tomorrow!". We woke up and Lauren asked "what time is it?" and instead of checking my phone I ran to the kitchen and checked the oven clock and DD was officially on. I did leave my phone on just incase somebody who was coming to my house was lost or needed to ask something - but I didn't answer texts or emails and once everyone had arrived I shut my phone off. It wasn't as hard as you would think and there was a noticeable change in our behavior. During the cookout I found myself more engaged in conversation and just enjoying my friends company instead of tweeting about how much I was enjoying it. Once everyone left for the day it was fun to just sit with Lauren and relax without both being on our laptops blogging or looking up soccer news. All in all I like our Disconnect Days and can not wait until Sunday to shut off the internet. You should give it a shot sometime!

Photos from DD (1 rule was our camera was allowed!)