Buffy and the Scoobies on Twitter

For the past month I have started following a new group of people on Twitter. I have been finding them to be rather entertaining with their day-to-day tweets. What makes these strangers more interesting than usual is this feeling that I already know them. Some days I can anticipate what they will be talking about… it’s all very very cool Déjà-Vu.

Who are these people? None other than the regular cast from Buffy The Vampire Slayer! You know I’m doomed as soon as it involves Buffy, I can’t help myself! But in my defense, what we have here is one helluva fun daily read of Buffy-filled goodness, and it is right on the ever so popular Twitter.

As of right now I don’t know too much about the who, what, and why regarding this whole Twitter gig of theirs. I stumbled onto the whole thing just before Halloween, and at that time they were role playing the Band Candy episode. At the time I was unsure as to what exactly I had found though.

(before we hit the jump - I’ll avoid spoilers if you’re not caught up to season 3)

The night I came across it, I was using the Twitter Search feature to check out who else was watching Buffy - that’s when I came across this:

I think I may be in heaven. Snyder handed me boxes of candy (to sell). I am holding boxes of candy. In my hands. I am so going to be broke. 02:20 PM October 27, 2008 from web

Xander

Alexander L Harris

Pretty cool, eh? Yeah, I know! I checked out his tweets and dicovered that this person is seriously role playing out Xander Harris, always staying in character.

Then I started to spooge folks. I’ll admit, it wasn’t a pleasant sight - I noticed he had several posts replying to Willow! Who isn’t a Willow fan? And then I noticed Buffy’s avatar in the list, and Cordelia’s… and Oz? That’s right, the whole season 3 Scooby Gang was there, right in front of my eyes, posting on Twitter!

I quickly added them to my list of people I follow, and the ever-growing Buffy addiction of mine spread from my DVD player to the web. As we got closer to Halloween, and on Halloween day itself, I watched the whole Band Candy episode unfold Twitter-style. It was exciting to watch them all message each other as the story played itself out. Over the weekend I read every last tweet, and then decided to go back a few weeks and see what else these people had posted.

And then Monday came.

I almost fell out of my seat at work. They were filling in content that happened after the Band Candy episode! As the week went on I realized that this was just more than a group of people playing out episodes via Twitter, these people were role playing the characters’ entire lives. Xander would complain about his parents, and freak out when he found out there was a test the next day. Buffy was talking about patrolling, Willow and Oz were talking about boyfriend-girlfriendy stuffs, and Cordelia was planning shopping trips to the mall.

Soon enough Gwendolyn Post arrived in town and the whole Lagos and the Glove of Mynhegon thang started going down. This was a fantastic episode, so I was thrilled to watch it get played out. They did not let me down either, I found myself glued to Twitter, checking to see if anything new was posted. This is when I realized that I was completely addicted; if you are at work, home, or at a friend’s place, and all you can think about is demons and the Glove of Mynhegon… you just admit it to yourself and get past the whole denial stage.

As exciting as it is, I am betting that this is currently just a group of Buffy fans that are goofing around on Twitter, entertaining each other as much as any of us readers. I cannot say what level of dedication each of the characters have with the whole ordeal either, but I’d like to think they’ll continue until the end of their high-school days and at least finish off season 3. The addict in me hopes they continue on with the other seasons so that my other favorite characters can come to life… but I have no idea if that’ll happen.

If you want to just jump in and start reading now, it looks like we’re building up to the next episode (Lovers Walk) - Spike is back in Sunnydale, and he’s a little upset about being dumped. I know I am psyched!

But if you are keen of going back and reading through the entire thing, you might want to do what I did and create a separate Twitter account that only has the Buffy cast being followed. I wanted to get a clean account set up to make reading as easy as possible (if you know of another way to do this, please please let me know!) There are several pages to read through, Xander alone has over 90 pages of Tweets - mind you, he’s the guy that started this whole gig back in spring of 2007.

The rest of the cast have around 10 pages, but a couple only have 1. The more popular characters post more regularly though, and although they are playing out season 3, not all cast members have been there since the beginning when Xander was posting on his lonesome.

When I get more information about the Scoobies on Twitter, I’ll let you know. In the mean time, here’s some quick info about the characters I can share with you all. I gathered this for my own personal interest, but you might find it interesting as well.

@Xander
First post: No matter what Willow says I am not doing the reading. What part of winter break doesn’t she get? 4:14 AM Mar 13th, 2007 from im
Following 415 users
Followed by 429 users
Currently has 1809 updates (91 pages)
Using web to post

@BuffySummers
First post: Wondering if Angel has to brood all the freaking time!? I’m not his cookie dough. 11:26 AM May 3rd, 2007 from web
Following 437 users
Followed by 444 users
Currently has 280 updates (14 pages)
Using web to post

@willow_r
First post: i can’t believe i heard about twitter from xander … he can’t be more of a computer nerd than me! 7:42 PM Sep 5th from web
Following 10 users
Followed by 200 users
Currently has 194 updates (10 pages)
Mostly using web to post
Also uses Digsby to post

@CordyChase
First post: Xander, Buffy, and Willow all have one of these things. What is the world coming to when I’m the last person to know about a new trend? 7:27 AM Oct 4th from web
Following 151 users
Followed by 160 users
Currently has 146 updates (8 pages)
Using web to post

@SpikePratt
First post: Oi! Where is everyone? 8:10 PM Sep 10th from web
Following 13 users
Followed by 66 users
Currently has 111 updates (6 pages)
Using web to post

@ozthewolf
First post: @Xander That pretty much sums it up. 1:13 AM Oct 17th from web in reply to Xander
Following 19 users
Followed by 114 users
Currently has 85 updates (5 pages)
Mostly using Twinkle and Twitteriffic to post
Also uses web to post

@Rupert_Giles
First post: I’m not really sure what I’m doing here but someone has to watch. 10:31 AM Oct 7th from web
Following 108 users
Followed by 153 users
Currently has 19 updates (5 pages)
Mostly using web to post
Also uses TweetDeck to post

@Angel_us
First post: Currently brooding. 8:24 PM Apr 17th, 2007 from web
Following 37 users
Followed by 192 users
Currently has 20 updates (1 page)
Mostly using web to post

@SlayerFaith
First post: I don’t get all this homecoming, be the best, popularity bullshit. But if B wants to run, I’m with her. about 1 month ago from web
Following 11 users
Followed by 113 users
Currently has 16 updates (1 page)
Mostly using web to post

@DHoffryn
First post: (nothing yet, this character is not yet introduced)
Following 2 users
Followed by 8 users

@anya_jenkins
First post: (nothing yet, this character is not yet introduced)
Following 18 users
Followed by 18 users