I cannot profess to much success in the way of viral fame. On my social media you will find no thirst traps, no meme-inspired Halloween costumes , vanishingly few “dunks,” “prompts” or other indicators of broad audience appeal; outside of the occasional full-length takedown ( Ellen DeGeneres , “Bros” ), my vibe online tends to be more “live-tweeting my latest ‘Love Is Blind’ binge.” But I have had one bright and shining moment on Twitter, back when the platform still went by that name.
The day I popularized the term “chartthrobs.” Laid up in a frigid L.A.
apartment with a nasty case of bronchitis, glued to cable news from sunup to midnight, I spent countless hours before, during and after election day 2020 watching wonks like MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki and CNN’s John King and Phil Mattingly dissect turnout: early and day-of, in-person and mail-in, not only in the swing states that decided the outcome, but also the swing districts , the swing precincts . By the time I fired off my portmanteau replacement for the uninspired “map kings,” I possessed a granular understanding of the vote, batch by batch, that surpassed even my fanatical attention to the 2000 election in eighth grade. Reader, I am not going back.
And neither should you. I say this not because I distrust the analysis on offer, or dislike the personalities onscreen. In fact, it is because I know how easily I could be lulled into another glazed-eyed week fretting over outstanding ballots in.
