All I Did Was Take a Photo

May 29, 2016 | 4 comments

Hey y’all (I said “y’all,” y’all!)!

I’m back from my second year at the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference.

Was is everything I hoped it to be? Yes and no.

Yes, because there was much to learn, more to affirm, and an abundance of camaraderie.

No, because in this midst of all that, there were some treasured folk that were deeply missed.

I’ll tell y’all about it later (I said “y’all” again!), but this post is about what I learned about social media. In particular, it’s about one post that taught me about social media.

You see, there’s this thing we call Lobby Time. In the early mornings (not really), between classes (sometimes) and after the evening group session (always), most of us gather in the lobby. It’s where we connect, hang out, let our hair down, play Magic or other games . . . You get the picture.

And speaking of picture (see what I did there?), I took one. There I am chatting it up with some friends-turned-family and I think, This would make a great photo. So in the midst of their discussion, I lifted my cell phone and click. I took a photo.

This photo.

Lobby Time at BRMCWC with Alton Gansky and Lori Roeleveld.

Great photo, dontcha think? I sure do.

The man on the left is Al “Pops” Gansky. He’s Aaron’s dad and the co-host of our weekly Firsts in Fiction Podcast. It was a year ago at Blue Ridge that we met face to face for the first time. [Read: And They Say Getting There is Half the Fun.] He kind of adopted me.

The woman on the right of the photograph is Lori Roeleveld, a disturber of hobbits. She’s an excellent blogger, and a true friend. She calls me sister.

So why wouldn’t I want a photo of some of my favorite peeps?

And why wouldn’t I post it on Twitter and tag them in it?

And why wouldn’t they respond?

So apparently, it’s become a thing. Like, a thing-thing. Like, an internal, #BRMCWC, photo-gone-viral thing. This was taken Monday night. The conference went until Thursday afternoon.

Do you know how many people were talking about this photo by Thursday afternoon? Well, what’s This Girl to do when the conference director says, “Send that to me ASAP so I can share it.”

Of course I sent it to her.

Here’s the thing. It’s not the photo. It’s the reactions.

So many people love so much about this photo, but it all started with Lori’s Tweet-back:

“When did I start to resemble Al?”

And since she has her own Twitter followers, they saw her reply to the photo. And each time, we tagged Al in the retweets. So others saw it.

And kept the conversation going.

And directed others to it.

Two days later, I passed Lori in the hall. As she had broken her foot last week, I paused to ask how she was doing. She gave me a tired smile and said, “I’m alright except for starting to look like Al.”

It’s a good thing my peeps have a sense of humor.

I can honestly tell you upon pain of death that this is one of my most popular tweets ever. It’s certainly one of my favorites.

Sure it’s not a Kardashian. Or Justin Bieber with his pet monkey. Or a Kardashian with Bieber’s pet monkey.

But it is a pretty fantastic photo of some pretty fantastic people that received some pretty fantastic attention.

And all I did was take a photo.

{View the original twitter pic of Alton Gansky and Lori Roeleveld at BRMCWC, and join the fun, here.}

So what’s the moral of this story? Have fun with your photos. And now and then, warn a girl.

And Frankly, My Dear . . . That’s all she wrote!