Down here not so many people use the social media. Typically, if there is an event that you would like to attend or promote, you seek people out and talk about it. Alternately, you can look for small posters that people put up in storefronts and bathrooms. It took me a long minute to figure out this new/old way of navigating. You mean there’s not some email list or Facebook group I can get on? I really go down to Tipsy’s and check the chalkboard? Yep.
Since people are mostly out on the sidewalk talking to each other instead of tweeting from across town, that means there is a lot of free hashtag space.
Up in New Bedford, MA, I participated in a terrible/awesome hashtag, #peopleofnewbedford, which pulls up a feed of people publicly misbehaving in the unique style of Southcoast Massachusetts. So when I arrived here in coastal Georgia, I scanned the social medias for hashtags that might provide some revelations on street life, secret domestic spaces or (important one) food. For work I started appending tweets and instagrams with #georgiacoast, a straightforward catalogue of local vistas. Lots of marsh and fishermen with their prizes…but no #peopleofbrunswick and none of that intimate humor that sometimes (when its not being horrible) social media can deliver about a place. The only thing I have followed so far is the hybridization of the popular bumper sticker brand #saltlife to reflect localisms like #hicklife #blufflife and (my favorite) #skifflife.
In addition to the above, I have been impressed by the hand-painted signage around town, and so I started documenting it under #paintedsignsofbrunswick. I was hoping that some viral effect would result, and a small army of #georgiacoast-ians would set out scouring the town in #skifflife trucks snapping the hundreds of colorful storefronts emblazoned hand painted content. So far its just me.
Although I would like to crack the code and become an Instagram superstar, for now I am satisfied with my quiet curation of local ephemera. There are plenty of things that are considered normal here that land with me as totally unique, and this is one of them. When I have time, maybe I will try to get a few more going: #tortoiseonthecauseway #seaislandproblems #bugbiteolympics #cakeraffle
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