I Don't Know...What Mark Twains Twitter Would Be Like
Standing the test of time
If you see a quote on social media, perhaps over a picture of a sunset or a field of flowers, there’s a decent chance the quote is attributed to Mark Twain.
I’m certain you’ll have seen at least one of the following posted to a social media account you follow:
“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog”
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do”
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect”
Even some modern jokes take inspiration from quotes attributed to Mark Twain:
“Giving up smoking is easy; I know because I’ve done it thousands of times”
There are several twitter pages under the name of Mark Twain, including @themarktwain which has 142,000 followers. There is also a website dedicated solely to his quotes (twainquotes.com).
The fact that many of his quotes are prevalent even today is even more impressive given that he lived in the 1800s and died over 110 years ago. Considering the amount that has changed since he passed, the fact that statements like “politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason” are difficult to argue against even now, says a lot for their long standing relevance.
I am one of the 142,000 individuals who follows @themarktwain on twitter, an account that reels off the many hundreds of quotes of his, once a day or so. I also recently read (for the first time) one of his most famous books – The Adventures of Tom Sawyer – a fun story about a mischievous teenager written in 1876. As I spent more time thinking about Twain, and the seemingly never-ending number of quotes you can find of his, I started thinking about what his twitter page might look like, if he was around today.
First, who was Mark Twain, really? He has been described as the “greatest humorist the United States has produced” and the “father of American literature”. Other than the hundreds of quotes, he is most famous for his novels ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’, and perhaps the even more acclaimed ‘Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’.
His real name was Samuel Clemens, his pen name inspired by one of his other passions – riverboats. ‘Mark Twain’ referred to a depth of water required for safe passage of a boat. A riverboat man would cry “by the mark twain!”, which indicated that according to the mark (on the boat), the depth is two ‘fathoms’, and safe for clearance.
A profile online says the following about his writing practices:
He wrote constantly, newspaper stories, poetry, plays, political diatribes, travel pieces, irreverent musings about religion, and a series of autobiographical sketches noted as much, he admitted, for the tall tales they spun as for the truth they told. And he wrote books—books read by millions—including the deceptively simple story of a backwards boy and a runaway slave that showed his people a whole new way to think about themselves.
I wondered how that would have translated into today’s world. Would these practices have translated into an enormous twitter, or substack following? Bigger than @themarktwain ?
I recently changed the way I use twitter, and now mainly only follow accounts that make me think in new ways or help me to learn. Despite that, I feel as though a lot of what I see is the same, short form quotes or ‘threads’, unwrapping mental models or theories, often based on writing by others or from the past.
So how would Mark Twain fit in here? Given he’s the producer of some of the greatest quotes under 240 characters of all time, surely, he’d be perfectly suited to the format and be one of the most followed accounts there is.
What would he tweet? Perhaps, in line with some of the formats that seem to have become popular on twitter we’d see tweets like:
There is one notable thing about our Christianity - in our country particularly and in all other Christian countries in a somewhat modified degree – it is still a hundred times better than the Christianity of the Bible. Here are 7 improvements we’ve made in the last 1900 years (1/8)…
Who are the oppressors? The few: the King, the capitalist, and a handful of other overseers and superintendents. But who are the oppressed? Here’s a thread exploring the importance of the labour movement…
Would he be popular on twitter? Looking at the top10 most followed accounts on twitter, there isn’t really anyone that fits a similar description to Mark. 6 out of the top 10 most followed twitter accounts are musicians and in fact, no one in the top100 most followed people on twitter is predominantly known as a writer.
The most followed person on twitter however, is known – among other things - for some incredible one-liners. In a similar way to Mark Twain, Barack Obama has web pages and accounts dedicated solely to his quotes.
As I read some of these, having read lots of Mark Twain’s, I saw many following similar themes.
Where Mark Twain said, “If all men were rich, all men would be poor”, Barack says “Focusing your life solely on making money shows a certain poverty of ambition”.
Where Barack says, “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time” Mark says, “The secret to getting ahead is getting started”.
This highlights something which is probably somewhat obvious - that most good ideas or thoughts are ones that have always existed, and those who are successful, particularly at communicating, are simply those who can apply these age-old ideas best or communicate them most relevantly. It may even be true that many of Twain’s famous quotes are simply repeated wisdoms he had collected from his readings.
If that’s the case, why do we still see so many quotes from historic figures like Mark Twain? Even if his ideas are still relevant, surely it’s appropriate to simply share ideas that we might have by using original language or thought?
The truth is that sharing ideas using quotes, is a simpler way of getting them across, or expressing what we feel. I realise myself, when I come across a quote that resonates with me, I have occasionally posted it to my own timeline, even if I did not feel the need to say anything at all before I saw the quote. It’s possible that I feel as though this will give off the impression that I am a wise and deep thinker, without needing to put in the effort to think deeply or generate any wisdom myself.
Perhaps we also feel that what we are saying is likely to be better received if they are attached to a name such as Mark Twain. Maybe it’s as simple as these quotes standing the test of time because they neatly summarised common thoughts that we all have. Either way, good quotes are powerful and become increasingly impressive when they hold weight as time goes on.
The true definition of a ‘meme’ is not a funny picture with text across it, but “an element of a culture or system of behaviour passed from one individual to another by imitation or other non-genetic means.” Some of Mark Twain’s quotes, particularly those that this post started with, are examples of original memes, having all been passed along over the last century and beyond by natural means.
Memes are all around us and shape the way we think about many things, from places to historical events and figures. Using a Mark Twain quote (or Albert Einstein, Socrates, Shakespeare, the list could go on!), not only succinctly says what we decide we want to get across, it also triggers the meme that is associated with Mark Twain – making the reader infer that this quote and thought stems from age old wisdom.
Its therefore possible Mark Twain wouldn’t be so popular on twitter if he were around these days, and it is the perpetuating nature of his quotes that makes him a cultural figure in my view of today’s world. Perhaps he would still be a famous author and commentator and make a significant impact on the world, but unless he was adept at quoting historical figures, part of a famous band, or using his humour to create what we might more recognisably refer to as ‘memes’ today, we might struggle to recognise his genius in the moment, and he might even fall short of the 142,000-follower count that @themarktwain has.