He has a legion of fans known as Socks' Army, a sworn enemy in The Office's Rainn Wilson and he's inspired knockoffs that can't even touch his more than 579,000 followers on Twitter.
Meet Sockington, the gray and white cat who tweets three times a day in missives that range from imperial to narcissistic–all at the hands of owner Jason Scott, a 38-year-old computer cultural historian known to Sockington followers as "fatty."
The Waltham, Mass., cat owner was one of the earliest adopters of Twitter, starting the Sockington feed in 2007. At the time, "a lot of people were wondering 'What's Twitter good for?'" says Scott. His response? "It's probably good enough to talk about a cat."
Or like a cat. Here's a sampling of Sockington's tweets:
Watching everybody from the top of the bookshelf I AM LIKE AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL except frankly I don't care how many times you guys collide
Tore through hallway, made a huge impression
HEY FATTY CLEANED OUT THE LITTERBOXES well there's plenty more where that came from mister
WHY HELLO WORLD I AM READY FOR MY CLOSE-UP snorting catnip in the limo before my big press conference
Though hundreds of people post their pet's latest moods or adventures on Twitter–or simply say "Meow," like Fluffy the Cat–Scott is a little different because he sees it not only as a kind of celebration of his kitty's real-life personality, but also as a send-up of Twitter users who aim only to accumulate followers. "I really, really don't like this field of social media," he says, adding that he's even rejected offers to market and merchandize Sockington's musings through books or movies. To Scott, the idea of monetizing personal communication is what's wrong with Twitter.
So why does Scott–who's cat has been called a 21st-century Garfield–do it all day long? Actually, he doesn't. He's written a program so that he can write the updates in batches of say, 30, then have the posts fed onto Twitter at various times, leaving more time for Scott to spend with his true loves: former strays Sockington and his feline housemate Penny. It also means he doesn't have a trigger response ready to every taunt left by The Office's Rainn Wilson, who's made it a hobby to antagonize the Internet's kitty star (he's called the cat Satan). Scott has no comment on the one-way feud.
Still, his regular followers make him smile. "If I ever feel down," says Scott. "I go search Sockington and there are hundreds of responses."
Follow Sockington on Twitter
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