Thread by @revmirandah

I have put three minutes’ thought into #WAT and here is a thing I can put my finger on.
When WAT is being its WATtiest, about half the time I feel like I’m the butt of the joke. Not personally but categorically. Usually for reasons having to do with liturgy; occasionally gender.

About the other half of the time, I just feel like the joke is kind of embarrassing. Not what I want onlookers to think the Bright Young Leaders of my church are spending their time talking about.

I totally get - really - that Twitter is a very weird social space. It feels like hanging out with friends while also being very public. I think that’s somewhat confounding to our capacity to parse social dynamics.

I believe that the WAT regulars genuinely feel that it’s not a clique and that anybody can jump in and play along. That understanding does not negate others perceiving that it *does* look and act a lot like a clique sometimes.

I also get that it’s super duper fun to have a bunch of friends with shared views and goofy in-jokes. I wouldn’t begrudge that to anyone. The other side of that coin is that people sitting at the other cafeteria tables feel weird about how loud you guys are laughing sometimes.

I have no beef with WAT, and also no desire to join; if I tried to play I’d just be the humorless person taking things too seriously all the time. I do enjoy spectating sometimes, and I am honestly glad that the WAT folks have each other.

WAT it up. Keep on WATting. Do your thing. And I’ll keep reminding myself, and occasionally others, that WAT is not the church.

(and here I actually *don’t* mean mayonnaise)