It all started innocently enough. @pprlisa (Lisa Dilg) of Twitter placed a red beret on her avatar and started the “Anti-Pl*rk Revolución.” Plurk is a website similar to Twitter in that it is a social journal to “Share your life with friends, family and fans.” Some of @pprlisa’s followers also donned red berets and posted messages on Twitter denigrating the Plurk website. Of course this was all in jest but some “plurkers” did not take it this way. See the following amusing Plurk conversation.
It has now become custom, among a certain group of Twitter users, to don the red beret specifically at five P.M. on Fridays, though the berets occasionally pop up at other times. The circle of Twitter people (or Tweeple) who do this are the same circle I met eight days prior to this post at the Waltham, Massachusetts Tweetup hosted by @justTamar (Tamar Wallace). It is hard for me to explain what it is to witness this phenomenon for the first time. One night earlier this week I was tweeting with my new friends when I noticed that one by one, all their avatars were suddenly wearing red berets. That is when I was first told the back story to the “Anti-Pl*rk Revolución.” I donned my own beret and joined the Revolución.
This morning, coincidently a Friday, @prp2 (aka Pete) changed his avatar to show himself in a jaunty summery straw hat. I liked it, so I swiped it and stuck it on my avatar. As the day wore on, more and more of the people I follow appeared wearing the same straw hat. As I write this, @JuliaGoolia is still making hats for people. They are everywhere. The result is what you see here. What a community!
