A. Barrett - Blackass

16:35 | I’m starting a hashtag for my missing bro. See the attached picture for details. #Furo needs us! (RT if you have a heart.) twitpic.com/bz7htc

17:52 | RT ‘@RICHnaijakids: Lord in heaven, you’ve been good to me. Finally found the Air Retro 7s Bordeaux http://tmblr.co/ZX-9nta1U9bm’

17:55 | @RICHnaijakids Enjoy your riches oh. But we KNOW your fathers. #corruptleaders

18:58 | Today is K’s birthday. I should call him. I should be the bigger person. But I won’t.

19:41 | Mum & Dad just got back from the police. They’ve still not heard anything about Furo.

19:59 | I ask Mummy a simple YES or NO question & she gives me a 20-minute speech!

20:02 | How can the police at Akowonjo Station tell Dad to pay them to go and find Furo???

20:05 | I’m just tired of everything.

22:47 | Going to bed. Goodnight everyone.

From early on I distrusted the persona of @pweetychic_tk. I didn’t know why at first, as she seemed sincere enough in her tweets about herself, and so I put my scepticism down to my own suspicious nature. (Just to press home that point about my suspicious nature, here’s my first tweet upon opening my account: To make money off selling us to ourselves for free, that’s the business model of social media. Given the tone of this tweet, I’ll understand if netizens find it hard to believe when in future I declare that actually I don’t disapprove of social media. But I don’t and can’t and won’t. For one thing, I’m too much aware that my disapproval wouldn’t matter a Facebook poke to the billions who have adopted Facebook and Twitter as if they were new-age versions of Christianity and Islam. And then again, as @_igoni, how can I, in honesty, oppose the very medium responsible for my existence? My efforts would be better served in renouncing Jehovah from the pulpit of a Kingdom Hall. Jesus wept and the hashtag exists, that’s gospel, so I’ll move on to the real crux: my distrust of digital personas.) I was wrong to think that my scepticism was unfounded, as the more I learnt about Furo’s story, the more certain I became that his sister’s persona had to be either contrived or schizophrenic. For here was a young lady whose full-blood brother had just gone missing, and there she was on Twitter collecting followers and trading jokes? If her digital persona was not misleading, then her real one had to be full of shit.

@pweetychic_tk: Thursday, 21 June

03:36 | I think I’m starting to understand this Twitter thing oh …

09:11 | Morning Twitterfam! See the sunny weather we’re enjoying in Eko!

09:30 | Phone app lets women rate men like restaurants http://hfpv.to/629Nv via @HuffPoVidz

09:31 | If that app had come out b4 it might have saved me from my rubbish ex! (See last tweet.)

09:37 | Did anyone watch yesterday’s episode of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

10:16 | Not a single retweet or mention since morning! #bored

10:20 | The biggest #COCK I’ve ever seen belongs to the aboki who has a kiosk near my hostel!

10:21 | FOOL => RT ‘@RUDEbwoyDeji: This #Unilag okpeke @pweetychic_tk has just fessed up that she likes aboki cock ha ha ha!’

10:23 | @RUDEbwoyDeji Silence is the best answer for a FOOL.

12:36 | WOOHOO! 104 new followers! #COCK tweets rule!

12:47 | Some people are sending me angry DMs oh. #COCK

12:50 | Confession time! #COCK

12:51 | For all you tweeps who RTed my #COCK tweet, I meant CHICKEN! The aboki keeps a big fat chicken as a pet. #gotcha #LWKMD

13:47 | Hmm. Follows have stopped since #COCK became CHICKEN. #justsaying

13:50 | O se!:-) RT ‘@lazyeyedben: #ff @pweetychic_tk, one of the realest chics on Twitter.’

15:27 | LOL RT ‘@drbigox: NEPA promo = Pay your bills regularly and win a generator.’

16:01 | I miss @efyouaruoh. Where are you? Mum & Dad went to the newspapers today. This is not funny any more oh. #Furo

16:06 | I’m sad:‘(@efyouaruoh won’t reply to his mentions & FB messages. Or is he lost 4 real?

21:54 | See me see wahala! This ugly FOOL @RudebwoyDeji is still looking 4 my trouble!

22:19 | Some people on Twitter are stupid sha. They think they can just say anything. But that’s easy to fix. @RudebwoyDeji, you’re BLOCKED.

22:43 | Too much animosity on Twirrer tonight mehn … get a life you haters. #goodbye

While searching for Furo’s story, I, too, underwent a transformation. I was more relieved than surprised by this happenstance. The seeds had always been there, embedded in the parched earth of my subconscious. I had heard their muted rattling in the remembered moments of my sleeping life; I had seen their shadowy branches overhanging the narrow road that wound into my future. As is usual with Damascus journeys, I only understood the portents after my conversion. (One such portent — or, rather, evidence of my subliminal preoccupation — can be recognised in this quote from an interview I granted a magazine a few months earlier: No human being has ever directly seen their own face. It’s impossible within nature — the most you can do is glimpse your nose and, for those with full lips, the curve of your upper lip. And so we only see ourselves through external sources, whether as images in mirrors, pixels on the screen, or words on the page, words of love from a mother, words of hate from an ex-lover. ) Long before Furo’s story became my own, I was already trying to say what I see now, that we are all constructed narratives.

@pweetychic_tk: Friday, 22 June

09:45 | This thing is getting real. It’s now 4 whole days since my big bro #Furo got lost. See his missing ad in today’s (cont) http://tl.gd/ktdfkbt

09:53 | I’m still disgusted at how the Christian Taliban twisted my #COCK tweet yesterday. It was just a joke — GET IT? #hypocrites

09:54 | 4 all the #hypocrites who attacked me, I now have 1856 followers! Eat your hearts out!

10:32 | WHAT have I done to this one AGAIN??? => @Nu9jaYoots

10:41 | @Nu9jaYoots Who dash you #YOOT Leader? You can’t even bloody spell! #mschew

10:52 | By their tweets we shall know them, Twitter #YOOT Leaders. With achieve-nothings like YOU no wonder PDP has a 68 y/o grandpa as Youth Leader!

10:55 | Why am I even wasting my time? For my new followers, abeg see my next hashtag.

10:57 | #Furo #Furo #Furo #Furo #Furo #Furo #Furo #Furo #Furo #Furo #Furo #Furo

10:59 | RT ‘@lazyeyedben: @pweetychic_tk Who is Furo?’ YOU don’t know? And to think you were my Twitter crush! You’re dumped! *stomps away *

11:06 |:-) RT ‘@lazyeyedben: @pweetychic_tk *singing *Please don’t go, don’t gooo …’

11:42 | I love Twirrer.

11:42 | Facebook is sooo yesterday.

11:43 | RT ‘@Lurv_Facts: Women are biologically attracted to a-holes because their traits resemble those needed for survival in the wild.’

11:44 | Retweets are NOT endorsements!

11:49 | I just lost 3 followers. WTF. Why can’t I get to 2000???

14:49 | For those who haven’t seen this yet, here’s my big brother’s missing advert in today’s newspaper: twitpic.com/yjs75Np #Furo

17:30 | God I LOVE this picture! twitpic.com/bzR76on via @JimmyChooLtd

17:31 | I’ll gladly endure the pain of wearing a tight pair of shoes … if it looks good LOL.

20:03 | I’m not pregnant. That’s a relief.

20:40 | _|_ (-.-) _|_ to @emem_1987 & @anpasticru

20:42 | Twitter is beginning to piss me off sha!

20:44 | Some RATS don’t know when to choke on their evil thoughts @emem_1987 @anpasticru

20:45 | I came here to look for my missing bro. Every other thing is dirt off my shoulder.

20:49 | This! RT ‘@lazyeyedben: I’m digging your style @pweetychic_tk. Don’t mind the olofofos.’

20:49 | THANKS @lazyeyedben! You’re such a cool dude!