Sockington (also known as "Sockamillion" or "Socks") was a domestic

cat The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members of ...

who lived in

Waltham, Massachusetts Waltham ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, and was an early center for the labor movement as well as a major contributor to the American Industrial Revolution. The original home of the Boston Manufacturing Company, ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. He gained large-scale fame via the social networking site

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

; his co-owner,

Jason Scott Jason Scott Sadofsky (born September 13, 1970), more commonly known as Jason Scott, is an American archivist, historian of technology, filmmaker, performer, and actor. Scott has been known by the online pseudonyms Sketch, SketchCow, The Slipped ...

, an archivist and Internet historian, regularly posted from Sockington's Twitter account since late 2007. As of July 2018, Sockington's account has over 1.2 million followers, many of which are pet accounts themselves. Sockington was a grey and white

domestic shorthaired cat A domestic short-haired cat is a cat possessing a coat of short fur, not belonging to any particular recognised cat breed. In Britain they are sometimes colloquially called moggies. Domestic short-haired cats are distinct from the British Shorth ...

; he was found as a stray outside a

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

subway station in 2004. In July 2014, ''Parade'' magazine called Sockington a "Pet Power Player" and named him #1 in their list of pet social media sensations. Sockington died on July 18, 2022.

Twitter fame

The posts, or "tweets", are written by Scott from the perspective of Sockington, typical posts run along the lines of: The posts are written a few at a time using a shell script and slowly fed into Twitter at short intervals. Between 2007 and January 2009, the Sockington account grew to 10,000 followers. In February 2009, the Sockington account was added to the "recommended feeds" list of Twitter, making it one of the accounts suggested to all new users who joined. This caused a rapid expansion of the account at the rate of between 500 and 5,000 new followers a day. By May 2009 the account had half a million followers, which led British newspaper ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...

'' to call him "Twitter's latest megastar". In July the number was over three-quarters of a million. In August 2009, that number surpassed 1 million. As of May 2010, Sockington has over 1.5 million watchers, making him the most popular nonhuman tweeter, being the 98th most popular Twitter feed. Sockington has two feline companions whose Twitter voices are also provided by Jason Scott: the ginger Pennycat (aka Pennsylvania) whose posts tend to reflect ironically on Sockington and his fame, and the other, Tweetie, a rescue cat who looks enough like Sockington to be nicknamed his "''Sockelganger''" (a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsdoppelgänger). Tweetie's tale of rescue has effectively brought attention to the plight of feral cats and provided an opportunity for fund-raising for The Animal Center in Newtown, Connecticut (United States), the shelter that saved him. "Food Lady", the woman responsible for the cats' maintenance and welfare... not to mention kibble, also has a Twitter presence.

Reception

The

MSNBC MSNBC (originally the Microsoft National Broadcasting Company) is an American news-based pay television cable channel. It is owned by NBCUniversala subsidiary of Comcast. Headquartered in New York City, it provides news coverage and politi ...

news site holds Sockington's posts to be a

parody A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its sub ...

of Twitter's "online time-wasters", while Scott himself believes the account shows up the low possibility of financial profit from Twitter: "Everybody wants this social media bubble. They want something where we're all chattering so much that we all get rich. This cat makes everybody look like fools because he's got hundreds of thousands of followers. And he doesn't tend to follow anyone but other animals." Mary Ullmer of ''

The Grand Rapids Press ''The Grand Rapids Press'' is a daily newspaper published in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It is the largest of the eight Booth newspapers. It is sold for $1.50 daily and $7.99 on Sunday. AccuWeather provides weather content to the ''Grand Rapids ...

'' called the tweets by Sockington "hilarious" and described the phenomenon as "

Garfield ''Garfield'' is an American comic strip created by Jim Davis. Originally published locally as ''Jon'' in 1976, then in nationwide syndication from 1978 as ''Garfield'', it chronicles the life of the title character Garfield the cat, his hum ...

goes 21st century". Sockington's account has been recommended to people joining Twitter in the "Suggested User List". Scott has had offers to commercialize Sockington, and is already selling Sockington T-shirts. At one time, he said he may accept one or more offers to offset his personal debts. In a May 2009 interview, Scott emphasized the deliberate lightheartedness of the Sockington updates and pages. "People have come asking Socks to endorse products or speak about causes...what does a cat have to do with the

war in Darfur The War in Darfur, also nicknamed the Land Cruiser War, is a major armed conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan that began in February 2003 when the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebel groups bega ...

?" On June 22, 2009, Scott created a "SocksArmy" account on Twitter, to allow for announcing causes and calls for charity. On October 25, 2009, Jason Scott announced Sockington would not be endorsing products or "selling out" (defined as being paid to change the nature of Sockington; he still indicated plans for a Sockington book and Sockington T-shirts are sold).Statement on Sockington Selling Out
/ref>

References

External links

* *
Pictures of Sockington
on

Flickr Flickr ( ; ) is an American image hosting and video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was a popular way for amateur and profession ...

Jason Scott interview about Sockington
{{Jason Scott Animals on the Internet Individual cats Jason Scott Twitter accounts Waltham, Massachusetts 2022 animal deaths Internet memes about cats

Twitter fame

Reception

See also

References

External links