Alex Song (@alexsnog) is a writer, actor, and comedian based in Brooklyn, New York. She has written for shows including The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and HBO’s Night of Too Many Stars and can be seen in the Adam Sandler movie The Week Of on Netflix. She co-hosts and produces Asian AF, a monthly variety show featuring all Asian-American performers, at the UCB Theatre in New York.
This week, Song talked with me about typing how she speaks, deleting overthought tweets, and meticulously checking for typos.
I wrote this tweet when I was hanging with a group of friends, where everyone had a significant other, and I just had a big chicken sandwich. And that’s how the sausage was made. I guess my Twitter persona over the years has come to be defined by a sense of perpetual heartbreak and moments of small victory. I’d like to think this tweet was a little bit of both.
How does your voice online differ from your voice in real life?
They are the same. I try very hard to type how I speak!!!
How much time and thought do you generally put into a tweet?
If it actually makes it out into the world, very little time. It’s my overthought tweets that end up immediately deleted, tweeted again, and deleted again, or never make it out of my drafts folder in the first place. I will painfully meticulously check for typos every time, though.
I try to only use Twitter as it was originally intended — to shout thinly veiled, vaguely comedic cries for help into the abyss. Out of curiosity, I went back and searched for how many times I had tweeted about therapy or my therapist since I joined Twitter, and the answer was 20 times. Pretty cool.
If you could change one thing about the site, what would it be?
Oh boy. Less evil. And more cute videos, please.
What does your Twitter feed look like?
My Twitter feed is mostly just comedian friends, with the occasional person-I-met-once-in-2013. Also, I don’t follow Cher, but she comes up a lot in my feed for some reason. I’m not complaining.
This was the richest I have ever been! But, as with a lot of the entertainment industry, everything seems to be feast or famine. Sometimes two or more roommates all went out and bought toilet paper, sometimes all of us just have to quietly improvise wiping solutions for the rest of the week. To reiterate, we are four adults who live in one apartment.
Who’s your dream target audience online?
My therapist.
Karen Chee is a Brooklyn-based comedian who writes for The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, and Shondaland, among other cool websites.