Update: 12/29 Tweetup Canceled

I thought Tweetups were social gatherings of like minded individuals? If 2 people are not able to attend it is canceled? There are more than 2 like minded awesome peeps in Chicago right? Just think it’s weird is all. Much love. Get well and safe travels.

Chelsea, you are correct! There are hundreds of awesome Chicago twitter folk. We hope you can make it out tomorrow to the hockey tweetup and be able to meet Shannon and other great Chicago people.

I second HireChelsea. I’m sure I speak for many others when I say that we don’t want tweetups to turn into “celebrity-driven” events. For many people it’s purely a social gathering, but much more important is that for others it’s a free opportunity to network which is vital to freelancers, small business owners and others who cannot afford pricey conferences and events. In that spirit, what was the deal with calling this cancelled meetup a “Social Media Celebrities Tweetup?” As near as I can figure it, a social media celebrity is someone who has a paying job actually doing social media somewhere. Oh my god, let’s all worship at their altars! These folks would be the first to tell you that they aren’t usually high up in their organizations and just happen to be lucky enough to do something they enjoy and be paid for it. I’m not trying to take anything away from Jason, Shannon and others who do great SM work for various companies and clients. But I AM saying that they’re not unique and thus not celebrities. To wit, there were people who were planning on coming out on Monday that I was interested in talking to and they were interested in talking to me. They were disappointed when the tweetup was cancelled and so was I.

OK, so calling it a ‘celebrity’ tweetup was to grab people’s attention- and clearly it worked. We don’t plan and execute these events- we are merely communicators of tweetup news. There’s no reason folks couldn’t or shouldn’t have met up who had wanted to, especially because some independent website said the tweetup was off. Not to mention there was another tweetup the following night, and at nearly a tweetup a week clip, the tweetup scheduled for Monday was definitely a special event. We’re all for getting people together, but don’t allow our website from letting you gather! That’s just silly.