How music maven Eric Alper became one of Twitter’s most prolific posters

“I’m actually not on social media as a lot as folks assume I'm,” says Eric Alper, which is a humorous factor to listen to from a man whose Twitter account – @ThatEricAlper – spits out a mean of fifty posts per day for an viewers of 800,000 (with one other 164,000 followers on Fb). Even when you don’t really comply with his accounts, it typically feels such as you do anyway, as a result of somebody you already know (or some celeb you comply with) has taken the bait and responded to one in every of Alper’s signature crowd-sourcing queries, similar to “What music has the perfect intro?” “Who's the perfect SNL forged member of all time?” “What film traumatized you as a child?” Or, if these show too difficult: “What’s a music with a musical instrument in its title?”

They’re the kind of softball-down-the-middle questions for which everybody has a solution, and each day, hundreds of Alper’s followers are blissful to supply up theirs. And due to Alper’s tendency to repost the identical Tweets with ruthless clockwork effectivity – with many reappearing on a exact annual schedule – it appears these questions will maintain getting requested till each final individual on Earth has chimed in with a response.

Twitter’s biggest attribute is its skill to ship breaking information because it unfolds in actual time, however the Toronto-born, Richmond Hill-based Alper runs his feed extra like a golden-oldies radio station: he performs the hits and performs them typically, to interact new followers who missed out on the enjoyable the final time round. Along with the aforementioned ice breakers, @ThatEricAlper presents a ceaseless, typically recycled stream of music-biz stats, pop-culture factoids, feel-good memes, candid archival images of rock legends, concert-video hyperlinks, celebrity-deathaversy notices, fortune-cookie platitudes (“Expensive everybody upset, bored, or offended. I’m right here for you. Sincerely, music”), and proudly horrible dad jokes (“I've a pal who writes about stitching machines. He’s a singer songwriter. Or sew it seams.”). Name it the Eric Alperithm.

“Even once I had 100 followers, I used to be utilizing Twitter the very same manner as I’m posting now,” Alper says. “I by no means go damaging. I’m there actually simply to advertise music. It was by no means about constructing a model. My model was simply, ‘I’m only a man who works in music who likes to submit stuff.’ I’m simply right here for my very own leisure initially. I really like studying folks’s feedback.”

For Alper’s legion of followers – which embody such celeb responders as Woman Gaga, David Crosby, Cameron Crowe and Brandi Carlile – his feed is a enjoyable, innocuous distraction from the distress and toxicity that Twitter too oftenbreeds. However for these much less wanting to share their favorite music with harmonica on it, Alper’s unwaveringly upbeat tone, predictable publishing schedule, and conspicuous absence from the conversations he prompts resemble the work of some nefarious data-mining operation. On Twitter, you’ll discover no lack of customers questioning if Alper is even an actual individual.

“It’s very unusual,” Alper says of his status as a Twitter enigma, notably since, together with his eternally lengthy black locks, he’s been an ubiquitous presence at Toronto concert events and music-industry features for the higher a part of 30 years. As a publicist – previously with leisure conglomerate eOne, now as the top of his personal firm – Alper has labored with a veritable Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame induction ceremony of shoppers (together with Ringo Starr, Carole King and Public Enemy), and he at the moment hosts his personal present on Sirius XM’s Canada Talks.

However whereas his personal Twitter following rivals that of his most high-profile shoppers, Alper isn’t making an attempt to be an influencer per se – apart from the occasional plug for his radio present or selfmade industry-advice video, his feed is basically devoid of self-promotion or selfies, and it’s not like he’s utilizing his viral content material to leverage publicity for his PR roster. He’s basically corralled the net equal of a flash mob, the place the mere act of engagement is the tip objective. And if some don’t prefer it – in line with him, folks on Twitter have “completely turn into angrier and extra short-tempered” throughout the pandemic – Alper can lean into his expertise representing well-known musicians, for whom growing a thick pores and skin is a job prerequisite. “Working with artists mentally ready me for any criticism or any negativity on social media,” he says. “I understand how to stroll away from it, I understand how to close it off. Social media could also be a giant factor in my life, however it should by no means overtake my sanity and my psychological well being.”

For Alper, his Twitter feed is solely the newest manifestation of an evangelical music obsession he developed as a child, when he would enterprise downtown from his Keele and Finch neighourhood to go to Grossman’s, the venerable Spadina blues venue owned and operated by his grandfather, Al Grossman. “It was a dive bar,” Alper recollects fondly, “but it surely made me notice that music wasn’t nearly music – it’s a neighborhood. Grossman’s was a spot the place college college students and draft dodgers and older senior residents and docs and legal professionals had been all coming collectively to take heed to this music and hang around and speak amongst themselves.”

Now, some 40 years later, the 50-something Alper is solely encouraging the identical kinds of communal experiences on Twitter, although he harbours no want to be the centre of consideration. (Earlier than lengthy, he could also be solely the second-most well-known Alper within the household, as his 19-year-old daughter Hannah continues to construct a sturdy on-line presence for her eco-activist work.) If Twitter is one huge water-cooler dialog, Alper is blissful to only be the man who installs new tanks at your workplace each day and let the chatter movement freely from there.

“Actually, it’s acquired nothing to do with me,” Alper says of his feed. “Individuals like to reply these questions as a result of they love speaking about themselves. It’s actually concerning the reminiscences that they’re sharing. And if my feed is a spot for them to have these conversations, then that’s wonderful.”