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It started after Maron tweeted:

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Black responded, and it quickly (d)evolved from there:

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While Dan Brown books are page-turners, they’re also littered with wordcount-boosting details, like the specific height of buildings or the exact make and model of Langdon’s current vehicle of choice. And let’s not even start on the bizarre mixed metaphors.

It’s pretty easy to make fun of Dan Brown. Just ask Telegraph columnist Michael Deacon, whose written-in-the-style-of-Dan-Brown "Inferno" review went viral last week. "Inferno" may have a ready-made readership of millions of "Da Vinci Code" fans, but it’s hard to deny that Brown’s writing style reads like a cross between a Wikipedia entry and the internal monologue of an art history professor.

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It’s a word we need to be careful with.

Less than 24 hours after the tornado struck Moore, Okla., looting became part of the story. The word, and outrage about it, are all over Twitter. Most tweets don’t name the source for the rumor. Here’s the most trustworthy tweet I saw early this morning:

KFOR reporter says docs told her of looting at hospital damaged by the Moore Tornado. — Andy Carvin (@acarvin) May 20, 2013

The tweet is from Andy Carvin, NPR’s senior strategist. I saw it because it was retweeted by Rukmini Callimachi, a terrific AP staffer based in West Africa.

Which is to say, I trust Callimachi, who brought me this information from a source who also seems reputable. When you’re getting your news from Twitter, trust is everything. On the other hand, this also isn’t that much information. Trustworthy as Carvin seems, as best I can tell, he’s a guy who was watching TV or read somewhere about what was broadcast on TV, and he’s tweeting what another reporter said that someone told her.

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Shaker Aamer, a Saudi citizen and former British resident, has been held without charge in the camp for 11 years. The British government has vowed to pursue his release, but currently, Aamer continues to be incarcerated and is on hunger strike. He has lost a quarter of his body weight. Wired reported Monday that Aamer is "is hoping that Twitter can help him." Via Spencer Ackerman:

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Clinton Shepherd spent 48 hours, 8 minutes and 25 seconds riding Navy Pier's Ferris wheel over the weekend. Shepherd is park operations manager at Navy Pier.

He calls it "a very overwhelming experience," made easier by the support of friends, family and the city of Chicago.

Guinness World Records allowed him to have one five-minute break each hour. He played hours of videogames to stay awake during the ride, and watched James Bond and Batman movies. Supporters followed him on Twitter.

The first Ferris wheel was built in 1893 in Chicago for the World's Columbian Exposition.

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The model Christine Teigen, known for her Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue appearances and for a Twitter presence that teeters between voluble and unhinged, went on a rant recently about the "Teen Mom" star Farrah Abraham's recent appearance in a "leaked sex tape." Over the course of a couple of hours, Teigen called Abraham -- whose recently released tape has raised questions over how intentional it was, and gotten her lambasted even by "sugar daddy" dating company CEOs -- vulgar names, expressed disbelief that her followers didn't want to join her in shaming Abraham, and instructed those who were offended to unfollow her.

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But Fiasco's Twitter presence is now at threat, as his management took control of his feed after the rapper prompted a conversation about Marxism:

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And so my project began. I entered the first line of the book in the text field: "In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since." At 119 characters, I didn't even have to abbreviate.

For the next three and a half years, I made my way through the book line by line, tweeting it 140 characters at a time. (I'm still on chapter three.) I never explained what I was doing, which has led to some confusion. Somebody once asked me if I was working on a novel, and I said, "Yes." It then became apparent this person thought I was writing the novel myself. This person was very attractive and found the writing quite good. You have no idea how hard it was to tell him the truth.

So, why did I decide to tweet every line of "The Great Gatbsy"? After all, it is not my favorite book. My favorite book is "The Age of Innocence" on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and "The Beautiful and Damned" on the other days of the week. "The Great Gatsby" wasn't even in my top 20.

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From the Onion's story:

“It’s hard knowing that there’s some other guy out there who gets to beat her senseless. In fact, for all I know, there might be someone out there assaulting her right now. And let me tell you, that guy is the luckiest guy in the world.” A saddened Brown added that, should the couple not reconcile, he remains confident that the special someone he was meant to beat to death is still out there for him, and when he finds her, he’ll waste no time in slapping her around.

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I swear to God, no ice cream for anybody today, Twitter.

Nobody really thinks a hashtag is a serious call to genocide. One doesn't go looking for great pearls of wisdom in a form whose crowning achievement is the motivational #risenandgrind, either. And Twitter is already a reliably rich trove of trending topics that are openly hostile to females, usually employing some version of the word "slut."  I fully believe that if we could convert all the misogyny on Twitter into a fuel source, we could reverse climate change in one hour. But there's nothing quite like gleeful shoe-on-the-other-foot bullying disguised as satire to give the most tiresome elements of the men's right's lobby – and they are legion -- fuel for their own self-righteous sense of victimhood.

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Several news outlets reported that a collective of hackers known as the Syrian Electronic Army hijacked the Onion's Twitter feed this afternoon, posting a string of unfunny, pro-Syrian army tweets:

"Israel denies forging new alliance with Al Qaeda: "We were friends all along, so it can't be new" - IDF Spokesperson"

"UN's Ban Ki Moon condemns Syria for being struck by israel: "It was in the way of Jewish missiles"

"UN retracts report of Syrian chemical weapon use: "Lab tests confirm it is Jihadi body odor"

Messages saying "Syrian Electronic Army Was Here" appeared on the satirical news network's various social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter, as well.

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It was at this point that Weiner’s campaign decided to blanket the district with leaflets attacking his opponents. But these were no ordinary campaign attacks: They played the race card, and at a very sensitive time. They were also anonymous.

On his MSNBC show, Kornacki explains further:

"This is the story that reveals something important about what Weiner's been willing to do in his public life. He made an ugly appeal to voters' worst nature. He did it at a very sensitive time. He did it to get ahead and he did it because he figured no one would catch him. Really he did get away with it. If it hadn't been for the Twitter silliness, he'd be well on his way to being mayor right now and maybe more."

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Boots' enlightenment began after Twitter user Sean E. Gray posted a photo from the store, with the caption "not impressed." It revealed the store's "Girl Toy" section, featuring princess gear and mini-tea sets, and the "Boy" section -- chock-full of Science Museum brand kits.

As the Guardian reports, Boots initially defended the placement, saying its real estate choices were based on "customer feedback" and making the stores "easier to navigate." But in the face of mounting criticism, it has since retreated, promising on its Facebook page that "It was never our intention to stereotype certain toys. It's clear we have got this signage wrong, and we're taking immediate steps to remove it from store."

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What he actually said, in a debate with Mark Andreessen at the Milken Institute Global Conference, according to CNN, was that "Twitter's roughly 1,000 employees will have jobs a decade from now," because "the business case for Twitter is solid," while employees of the New York Times "should be worried about the longevity of their jobs" because the newspaper "is not guaranteed a future in the digital age."

Please. No one is guaranteed a future in the digital age. But if I had to pick one paper that had the best chance of surviving and thriving, I'd probably choose the New York Times, a newspaper that continues to provide indispensable, in-depth reporting on topics of great social importance. And if I had to pick one social media network that was most likely to survive, I'd pick ... well, who the hell knows? Social media networks, so far, have the lifespan of butterflies. They look nice for a few minutes, and then they're gone. Poof! Friendster, MySpace, et cetera.

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The first chapter begins in "Amsterdam."

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It's a crime mystery told in the second-person:

There are pictures:

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Read chapters one through seven here.

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I started writing my review of Twitter Music while listening to a George Jones country song I'd never heard before: "The King Is Gone (and so are you.)" I listened to a lot of George Jones on the day I learned he died. It seemed appropriate, if a bit macabre, to follow him on Twitter Music and see what sort of songs might pop up as a result.

I'm not going to list "The King Is Gone" in my top ten George Jones pantheon (frankly, any chorus with the words "yabba dabba doo" is right out) but I'm glad I heard it. I love being exposed to new music (even if, and sometimes especially if, it's old music).

Twitter Music is all about the social discovery of new music. It suggests for your listening pleasure songs that are already popular on Twitter, songs that the people you follow are tweeting about and listening to, and songs from artists who are in mysterious ways connected to the musicians that you choose to follow. It's confusing in a good, serendipitous, jumbled up kind of way. You're never quite sure how exactly the algorithm works that is generating the tunes, but that's OK. The whole point is discovery, hearing something new that you might like, generated through a fortuitous crunching of your social relationships. If you have a Spotify or Rdio premium account you can listen to the entirety of the songs; if you have iTunes you get a 30-second clip and the option to buy.

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That said, occasionally the right person starts the right Twitter parody account at the right time, and the commentary can take on a life of its own. The result: an account that can retain followers long after the prompting event or person has disappeared from headlines.

Here are 6 accounts based on memes well past their Internet prime that still making it work:

1. The Bronx Zoo's Cobra, which caused a panic when it disappeared from the Zoo in 2011, soon resurfaced on Twitter, gaining thousands of followers overnight. Although it was soon recovered in real life, the parody account still updates frequently and retains almost 200K followers:

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