The F***ing Epic Twitter Quest of @MayorEmanuel
By: Dan Sinker
Nah nah nah-nah nah
I couldn’t resist.
When @MayorEmanuel was actively tweeting, I was a little obsessed, because:
- It captured a pretty unique point in Chicago history
- I loved all the Chicago references, both esoteric and obvious
- It was f***ing hysterical
So I had to pick up The F***ing Epic Twitter Quest of @MayorEmanuel. But I did it with a little trepidation because Twitter doesn’t necessarily translate to a fully baked book. Turns out, reading the book ten months after the fact wasn’t as great as reading the Twitter feed in the moment, but it wasn’t bad either.
I wasn’t on board with the @MayorEmanuel feed from the beginning, so the book gave me a better idea of how the whole phenomenon got started. And re-reading the bits I already knew was great. Plus, Sinker provides some background and color commentary through the foreword, afterword, and footnotes, which helped put things in context.
However, there are wayyyy too many footnotes. The ones that provided additional insight into Sinker’s writing process were helpful, but most of them were totally unnecessary. He includes a ton of footnotes explaining pretty obvious facts about Chicago, the mayoral race, the weather and the Bears, all of which I found distracting and which kind of took the fun out of it. If you don’t know what the Super Bowl Shuffle is, you shouldn’t be reading the book.
That said, it was fun to re-read the whole @MayorEmanuel thing. And honestly, I could see this book being used in a future Chicago history course, because it encapsulates the first real mayoral race in Chicago in 20+ years.
In a nutshell:A quick read that creatively captures an unusual time in Chicago. Three stars.
Peace Out, @mayoremanuel
