{"id":66820,"date":"2020-09-14T23:24:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-14T20:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/the-genius-behind-the-cafinus-twitter-account\/"},"modified":"2020-09-14T23:24:00","modified_gmt":"2020-09-14T20:24:00","slug":"the-genius-behind-the-cafinus-twitter-account","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-genius-behind-the-cafinus-twitter-account\/","title":{"rendered":"#The \u2018genius\u2019 behind the @CAFinUS Twitter account"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#The \u2018genius\u2019 behind the @CAFinUS Twitter<\/a> account<\/strong>”
\nCanada’s military charm offensive south of the border is spearheaded by one Newfoundlander, a full battery and a love of poetry<\/p>\n

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\"Captain<\/img><\/p>\n

The down-hominess of Sullivan\u2019s tweets reflects his upbringing in small-town Newfoundland (Photograph by Farrah Skeiky)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It seems to take a village of bureaucrats to make a social media message humorous or timely: one Transport Canada tweet issued to celebrate the unofficial Star Wars<\/em> day of May 4 was five months in the planning, which included being \u201capp<\/a>roved as being factual and funny.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then there is the @CAFinUS (Canadian Armed Forces working in the United States) Twitter account. The missives run the gamut from pithy requests\u2014\u201cSundays with masks > No more Sundays\u201d\u2014to long threads focusing on BIPOC troops who \u201cfought to fight for a country that thought they were less than equal,\u201d to expressing a fondness for Hawaiian pizza (invented in Chatham, Ont.). Often, its words are poetic: \u201cIt\u2019s from the quiet men at supper tables \/ It\u2019s from the women in shawls at monuments \/ It\u2019s from us.\u201d This tweet appeared ahead of Remembrance Day in November 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is genius. I love it,\u201d says Stephanie Carvin, an associate professor of international relations at Carleton University who researches national and international security. She\u2019s been a follower for a while. \u201cI thought, \u2018There is no way this is a real thing,\u2019 and then it got verified [with Twitter\u2019s check mark of authenticity] and I was like, \u201cHoly cow, it\u2019s real!\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

The person behind the account has been reluctant to identify himself until now. \u201cI don\u2019t want them to see me. I want them to see the Canadian Armed Forces,\u201d explains Capt. Kirk Sullivan, 38, a public affairs officer (PAO) at the Canadian embassy in Washington. While Sullivan is the account\u2019s sole tweeter, he emphasizes that it doesn\u2019t reflect his opinions. (He won\u2019t even say if he personally likes pineapple and ham on his pizza.) For Sullivan, the account\u2019s focus is simple: \u201cLetting people know that we\u2019re here,\u201d he says. \u201cObviously comingled with that is waving the flag representing Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is undoubtedly Sullivan is @CAFinUS\u2019s voice. The cadence of his tweets hearkens back to his upbringing in Calvert, N.L.\u2014\u201cI grew up in a very small town where folk songs were part of everyday life\u201d\u2014as well as his love of poetry. His untraditional career path also helps. He spent six years as a Royal Canadian Navy marine engineer \u201cgetting seasick on a few different ships\u201d before earning an English literature degree at the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ont., in 2012, and then shifting to work as a PAO\u2014first in Ottawa and now in Washington, where he has just completed a master\u2019s degree in journalism at Georgetown University.<\/p>\n

After Sullivan arrived in the U.S. capital in July 2018, he and his boss decided to make over the military Twitter account that had been going since 2010. The name was changed (it used to be @CDNally) and its bland government fare was replaced by a friendly, folksy persona, the ultimate polite Canadian neighbour. Sullivan\u2019s tweets are often typed on his phone, at any hour of the day\u2014\u201cIt\u2019s pervasive, it\u2019s always, it\u2019s unending\u201d\u2014and he interacts extensively with those who react to his posts. \u201cBattery life is crucial,\u201d he says. In the last two years, @CAFinUS has gone from fewer than 600 followers with 8,500 impressions a month to more than 35,000 followers with an average of 10 million monthly impressions.<\/p>\n

Sullivan often tells personal stories because \u201cthat\u2019s what\u2019s going to resonate with people.\u201d It could be the story of Lanier Phillips, a Black U.S. Navy sailor who was scared to leave his ship when it ran aground off Newfoundland in 1942 because his shipmates said he\u2019d be lynched if he went ashore. There are poignant remembrances of lives lost, usually troops and veterans, including the many who have died of COVID-19. Sullivan receives direct messages from family members expressing their appreciation for the tweets: \u201cThere\u2019s nothing that I could endeavour to achieve with a social media account that could be more than that; that [it] could matter to someone who is grieving the loss of their loved one,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

In late November 2019, as Sullivan was walking into the embassy, he jotted off a tweet asking followers to write to troops who would be away from their families during the upcoming holidays. This spawned a letter-writing campaign that saw 400,000 letters flood the processing centre at CFB Trenton. \u201cI heard from friends of friends, something to the effect of \u2018Can you please tell him to stop?\u2019 \u201d Sullivan recounts with a laugh.<\/p>\n

The account doesn\u2019t shy away from current events.\u201cIt takes a point of view on some of the issues that are so important right now, like Black Lives Matter,\u201d writes Scott Simmie, a communications specialist, in an email. \u201cGovernment historically would not take a position on something like this unless it had gone through 47 committees. The honesty and spontaneity really impresses me.\u201d In June, Sullivan tweeted: \u201cDo \/ not \/ think it\u2019s over . . . do \/ not \/ think it\u2019s someone else\u2019s problem \/ Racism is our problem \/ They are Us.\u201d When a woman responded, saying: \u201cSystemic racism is a myth,\u201d he wrote: \u201cDear Katherine: We hope all is well with you and yours during these uncertain and trying times. Please know that racism is very real. Please know that it\u2019s unacceptable . . . Please understand that it hurts us<\/em>, Yours, @CAFinUS.\u201d Sullivan doesn\u2019t need approval for his tweets (\u201cIt\u2019s more an approval of an approach,\u201d he says), noting that the account does not make announcements but rather echoes existing military policy, reflects the CAF\u2019s code of ethics and takes its cues from statements already made by leadership.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is the most Canadian Canadian,\u201d says Richard Lachman, an associate professor of digital media at Ryerson University. \u201cHe is using the stereotypes of us in the most positive way.\u201d The surfaceness of Twitter, says Lachman, with its 280-character limit, means the account can avoid getting into deep, critical debates about problems in Canada and the CAF, such as inclusion or gender policy: \u201cThe most generous [characterization] would be [to say that] it\u2019s doing bridge-building and awareness-raising; the least generous would be [to say] it is propaganda, it\u2019s able to say, \u2018Canada is here, rah rah rah, the Forces are great, remember the troops.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

For Carvin, the security expert, the account is important because it \u201cis trying to engage the American people with a view to reminding them that they have allies, and these allies care about America.\u201d She also likes the way it engages with, in her words, \u201cschmucks like me.\u201d When a cybersecurity analyst said that being followed by @CAFinUS \u201cfeels like when your mom starts following you on Instagram,\u201d the account quipped, \u201cJust clean up your room, okay.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n<\/hr>\n

This article appears in print in the October 2020 issue of<\/em> Maclean\u2019s magazine with the headline, \u201cA folksy charm offensive.\u201d Subscribe to the monthly print magazine here.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#The \u2018genius\u2019 behind the @CAFinUS Twitter account” Canada’s military charm offensive south of the border is spearheaded by one Newfoundlander, a full battery and a love of poetry The down-hominess of Sullivan\u2019s tweets reflects his upbringing in small-town Newfoundland (Photograph by Farrah Skeiky) It seems to take a village of bureaucrats to make a social…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":66821,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[22974,69282,67806,115,32681,69281,10401,2199],"class_list":["post-66820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-canada","tag-canadian-armed-forces","tag-editors-picks","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-the-genius-behind-the-cafinus-twitter-account","tag-twitter","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}