Week Seven: Continuing to Compare; Can a Jesus Parody Advertise?

This week I will begin by looking at three more examples of how Christianity is presented in the Twitter accounts of Max Lucado, Hood Jesus as well as Reverend Run Wisdom. 

For this week's analyzation I decided to take a closer look at the number of retweets and favorites gained by each individual tweet I selected by each of the accounts to use for comparison. 

First, it's important to know how many followers each account has as of October 10th, 2013: 

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Hood Jesus: 125,644 followers

Max Lucado: 843,318

Reverend Run Wisdom: 4,429,451

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Each account has a strong following. 

Below are Hood Jesus' examples: 

908 retweets; 713 favorites as of 5:30 Oct 10th

9 retweets; 28 favorites as of 5:30 Oct 10th

818 retweets; 532 favorites as of 5:30 Oct 10th

Compared to last week's post, Hood Jesus, as per usual, posting satirical tweets putting a funny spin on Christian based ideas. Unlike the tweets selected from last week, Hood Jesus used its fan base to promote a book that can be bought on Amazon.com for almost $10. The release of the book titled, Jesus > Religion: Why He Is So MUch Better Than Trying Harder, Doing More, and Being Good Enough, was tweeted about a few times by the Hood Jesus Twitter account. Because of no prior known affiliation is made me wonder if perhaps the moderators of the Hood Jesus account were perhaps paid for this promotion. If that is the case, does that cross any ethical boundaries? Or are there any ethical boundaries for a Jesus parody account? This tweeting instance was very different from any other tweet the account has published, to my knowledge, and struck me off guard. Although the other two accounts being analyzed often promote different serviced or goods, but they are also being completely transparent about their identities as well. This book plug just brings up an interesting dichotomy of Hood Jesus as a spiritual influencer as well as an advertising ploy. Is advertising under the facade of "Jesus" unethical or even blasphemous? Or are ethical practices not required over Twitter? I don't really know! 

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Below are Max Lucado's examples:

352 retweets; 196 favorites as of 5:30 Oct 10th

9 retweets; 3 favorites as of 5:30 Oct 10th

521 retweets; 289 favorites as of 5:30 Oct 10th

Compared to last week, Max Lucado's tweets remain about par. Two out of the three use his signature hashtag, "#YoullGetThroughThis," and then dish out an encouraging message. The one that differs from the group is his retweet from the Lucado Team promoting a book signing he will be doing on October 14th. After scouring Max Lucado's twitter page I found this is not something uncommon for the famous pastor and author. He does fairly regularly stray from strictly tweeting religious based content through his account. This differed from the two examples from last week tremendously because they were obviously both faith based. 

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Below are Reverend Run Wisdom's examples: 

2,838 retweets; 1,128 favorites as of 5:30 Oct 10th

2,186 retweets; 855 favorites as of 5:30 Oct 10th

1,041 retweets; 459 favorites as of 5:30 Oct 10th

Rev Run's tweets were extremely similar to his from the week before. I also noticed when inspecting his account that he doesn't follow anyone back on Twitter which made me realize unlike the other accounts you can never expect any interaction from the former rap star. That makes it interesting because in his case Twitter is less like a forum than it is for everyone else who might take the time to follow a different person or see if someone has tweeted at them or not. It is a curious point to notice when questioning how lived religion is conducted over the internet because his relationship with his followers and the expression of faith he is presenting is one-sided. 

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The primary message about religion these three account seem to all communicate is similar from week to week. They are all in agreement with the basic principles of Christianity-- Christ is in control. That is the defining message of all of the faith-based tweets. They reiterate it over and over again how Christ is pretty much the answer to any trial or tribulation you might be facing. 

A pattern I have noticed from analyzing the Max Lucado account is his use of the hashtag You'll Get Through This (#YoullGetThroughThis) to group together his encouraging tweets that specifically are geared towards those hurting. This is a great exposure technique used by Max Lucado. He knows that a person who reads that particular tweet that helped them overcome something they are struggling with then they might like to see similar tweets with the same type of message. The hashtag allows the reader to easily access all of these types of tweets with a single click of the mouse. 

These observations of tweets are similar to last week's in the respect that they deal with the same subject matter. Max Lucado is, once again, inspiring. Rev Run Wisdom subtly evokes Christianity through secular-seeming inspirational quotes. Hood Jesus plays on college life and popular culture references to promote Christianity. 

They are also slightly different from last week's because this week Max Lucado and Hood Jesus both posted promotional tweets. Max Lucado, as stated previously, retweeted about his book signing. Hood Jesus posted about the sale of a new book. These two posts seemed to be out of the ordinary to my at first glance. After investigating further I saw that Hood Jesus had posted about the arrival of the new book a few days before and also that Max Lucado has had similar tweets in the past.

Comparing Tweets over a Week

After discussing my original case proposal I thought it would be better to add another twitter account to be analyzed in order to broaden the scope of the research. I am still analyzing twitter accounts. One account, Max Lucado's, is the example of the official religion twitter account because he is the one of the three that is an actual practicing preacher. The Hood Jesus account and Revered Run Wisdom's account would be the examples of a lived religion. 

I took three tweets from each account during a span of a week. I selected tweets from September 15th, 14th and 12th. The following tweets I selected are below: 

Twitter as a social media platform is unique compared to other forms because it allows the audience to directly interact with the one posting the tweets. It creates the facade of a personal relationship with the tweeter because you are able to correspond back and forth with each other. Most times celebrities and other well-known accounts will interact with their followers on a regular basis. This gives a more colloquial feel to religion as opposed to a traditional more structured view of communicating religion. Twitter opens up the dialogue for religious conversation. Those tweeting devotional tweets are exposing themselves to possible direct reticule and backlash from followers or random people who happen upon their posts. This opens vast options for both those trying to send out a positive Christian message as well as the consumer of those messages. It opens many doors to those creating the messages because it allows for the previously mentioned closer relationships with those following the messages. It also allows the message creator 24/7 access to the consumer because they can constantly update their twitter feed rather than waiting to put out a certain message on Sunday mornings during a church service. They can be in constant communication with the congregation leading to what some might see, in Max Lucado's case, as a stronger bond between the pastor and his clergy. It offers many avenues for those running the Hood Jesus account as well as Rev Run because they are given an audience of what could be millions to spread a message. The possibility of such audience gives a lot of power to the hands it is put. Twitter also offers limitations as well. Twitter is limiting in that you can only write a 140 character message. Often times that can inhibit the content of the message you are trying to present or forces you to summarize a more complex thought. Often times, if quoting Biblical scripture, the quote is much longer than the allotted character space and a paraphrase is necessary. Paraphrasing can often be tricky because depending on the paraphraser's interpretation of the scripture can completely alter another's understanding of that same scripture. Also with Twitter's space restraints no previous context is allowed which can sometimes result in mixed messages. 

After reading through the chosen Tweets by my selected accounts it is apparent all three Twitter user's goal is to promote a positive message through Christian ideals. The primary message each seem to be communicating are as follows:

• Despite hard times, do not worry because God is in control
• Salvation through Christ is the ultimate prize

Just by studying three tweets over a week span from each account I was able to get a good understanding of what kind of future tweets I can expect from each account. Max Lucado, as expected, tweets very traditional values and scripture. Rev Run tweets sometimes seem lyrical as if he were rapping them. Hood Jesus tweets using slang term and abbreviated words to express the feeling of rap-like speak. Despite all of the major differences in syntax the overwhelming theme of all three accounts is that Christianity and positivity are the answer.