Twerk Like No One is Watching
They probably aren't
Hey everyone!
I’m about to go off on a tangent, but don’t worry, I included some headers so you can follow along. I didn’t go to law school for nothing, people! Buckle up and get in the car. Let’s talk about twerking.
I DIDN’T MAKE DANCE TEAM
Unfortunately, twerking’s not a thing I can do. Or maybe I just haven’t spent enough time trying. I’ve never been to da club. I went to high school in South Dakota (no clubs, at least that I knew of) and college in Montana (same). The only party I went to in college that my mom or a professor didn’t host was at Brett Foley’s trailer in a cow pasture off highway 79 south of Rapid City (Hey Brett!). Brett’s a great host with a signature drink, the Foley 6 (6 shots of whatever liquor he had on hand I believe). My BFF Wendy and I gave Mike Fauss (a guy I only sort of knew) a ride home. I remember him politely asking if he could huck empty beer cans out the back window of my car, “Ladies, do you mind?”
Before I knew it, I was forty with a bunch of kids. Onset of twerking is supposed to occur before the age of forty. I know they have twerking classes to get losers up to speed, but my kids have drum lessons and tennis and stuff. The closest I got was that time someone gave me free pole dancing lessons in exchange for editing their manuscript. I really should have gone, but this is what I imagined:
IN 2025 TWERKING IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN READING. (You all have seen the documentary Idiocracy, right?)
It’s not that I’m desperate to twerk, it’s just that I’m mystified by something I can’t do. Excellent twerkers have some sort of magic. For one, they’re confident, so confident that they’re willing to look silly. Then, there’s the mind body connection piece. These people are basically telling you that they are great in the sack. More than that, they’re fun. Being fun isn’t something you can teach. You were either sorted into Griffendor, Slytherin, or Da Clerb. (JK Rowling forgot that one.)
SCIENCE
I’m going to go ahead and say that twerking ability, in combination with frequency of twerking, are strong indicators of a fun and energetic personality. If you can twerk, you can lead, maybe just to the punch bowl, but there is power in that. And it’s not just ability to twerk, it’s the carefree soul who does it. For instance, I know Terrell can twerk, but would he? My man will not be leading anyone to the punch bowl. I think that might have been before I met him.
So anyway, I think there’s lot of overlap between twerking ability and social media success, which is basically the communal punch bowl these days. I bet if we did a study, we’d find that really good twerkers would be overrepresented in accounts with over ten thousand followers. I’d also like to compare twerking to other markers of societal success: home ownership, income, jet skiing. Or maybe criminality. Can you imagine a serial killer twerking? I can’t. If someone twerks, I’d trust them with a HIIT class, and maybe, with my life.
TIKTOK IS JUST FUCKING WITH US
But anyway, I’m on social media doing everything but twerking. As a non-twerking, over forty, my probability of success is pretty low. And the funny thing is, if we circle back to my original statement, “twerk like no one is watching,” no one is ever watching if you’re on TikTok. You probably filmed a reel alone in your living room and then spent too much time editing it. The TikTok algorithm decides if it’s worth sharing and then there’s no guarantee people will watch all the way to the end. It all feels very “Dance, monkey, dance!”
And when no one watches, the advice is to be more consistent. Film more reels. Make them shorter. Use a trending sound. Post them at a different time of day. Aka, TikTok is just fucking with us.
NOTHING MATTERS. WE’RE ALL JUST DUST.
As an author it’s really hard to parse this out. There’s so much pressure to self promote, and it can help, but there’s also no direct link between any social media action and book sales. This leaves a lot of us alone in our living rooms twerking like it’s our last hope. Nothing in publishing is easy and there are really no guarantees. It’s difficult to get an agent, find a publisher, sell books to readers. It probably comes down to word of mouth, but all of us authors are like, “OMG, twerking? I guess the blog tour didn’t work last time.” We are selling books that take years to finish and are invariably personal, but it’s basically:
IN CONCLUSION, COME TO MY BOOK LAUNCH PARTY!
I don’t know what I’m doing, but there is a party! There will be no twerking, unless you bring dat ass. Gabby, I’m counting on you.
Vampire costumes encouraged, but not required.
xoxo
Sam
