Dear Dabby… How To Win Weed Friends & Influence People
Advice on navigating the canna-sphere for the dankest possible connections.
Should we be DMing celebrities? Would you ever smoke weed with someone who DMed you an invitation? Also, who do you follow that brings you joy — and why? – Rand Omfan
Should you DM celebs? Sure. But don’t be mad if they don’t answer. I’m not even famous, and I get hundreds of messages a month. I can only imagine how many messages get sent to actual A-listers. But my advice is to go for it! You never know. Shoot Your Shot 2019 is in full effect. I once scored an interview with B-Real after shooting him a random DM back in the early days of the Twitter, so anything is possible.
I smoke weed with fans and randoms all the time. If you got that fire loud dank, we can definitely smoke up. Just stay cool and you’ll be fine.
To your second question: I follow Jesus. Kidding — although me and Jesus are cool. I’m also cool with Ganesh. And Hanuman. And Quan Yin.
I suppose I could start doing more #followfriday posts on Twitter to let people know about other cool Twitter users. I like @sassycrass, @staceylovesweed, @tomangell, @intlcbc, @cannabisnow (duh) and a bunch of other folks. On Instagram, I like @dankgrassclub, @bcbubbleman… The list goes on. Every single person I follow is cool, except for some of the right-wing weirdos I follow just so I can keep an eye on them.
I feel like cannabis lovers hail from across the political spectrum, and sometimes this means I see content I find offensive in the cannabis social sphere. Do you encounter this breaking down of echo chambers in the cannabis world? – Al O’Verthemap
Yeah, it’s weird. I was shocked when I found out that a bunch of people I had smoked weed with, gone to rallies and court support with and gone to bat for were Trump supporters. I was devastated to see how many racist people exist in the cannabis community. And before you start, let me break it down for you: If you support someone that advocates racist policies, you support racism. If you support racism, you are a racist. It’s a simple equation.
Even if the Trump administration manages to legalize weed (and don’t hold your breath; too many Republicans make too much money from the private prison industry), they will still be racist. Cannabis culture is supposed to be about freedom and liberty and equality, so racism and sexism should have no place in the movement. But alas, the world is the world and sometimes you have to work with people you might want to avoid dealing with otherwise. Smoking weed can be enlightening, and should remind you that we are all one, but it doesn’t always work that way. Sigh.
How do you balance posting about your personal life versus your professional life? – Yang Yin
I don’t. You will rarely, if ever, see me post about my personal life. All the ups and downs, the money problems, the small depression that I went through last year? All of that sh*t is personal. I’m not the type of person to share my burdens with strangers. For some people, their social media is like a diary. Mine is more of a promotional and inspirational tool. Heh. Inspirational tool. But seriously, most things you see on the social media are cleverly crafted to give you a certain feeling. Everyone is usually living their best life on the social networks, or rather, trying to create the illusion of living their best life. Remember that pixels aren’t real.
After you appeared on Netflix’s “Cooking On High,” you got way more followers. Do you think about posting differently now that you have tons more followers? – Auntie Social
Not really. I mean, most of my social media posts are about weed and comedy, and since “Cooking on High” is a funny show about weed, I figure that all my new followers are big fans of either or both. I will say that I did lay off the politics for a week or two after the show came out, but when I talked to my social media followers, most of them said they enjoyed my political posts. I mean, it’s impossible to be a cannabis advocate and not have political opinions. I have made it this far by being myself and I see no reason to stop now.
Ngaio, you don’t have a blue verification check on Twitter! How is this possible? How are we to trust that you are not a bot?! – Vera Fide
A bot can’t smoke as much weed as me. Also, you have to jump through a lot of hoops to get verified. Is a blue check really worth it? I’ve never even tried. I guess you will just have to trust me.
TELL US, what would you ask a cannabis social media expert?
Originally published in Issue 37 of Cannabis Now. LEARN MORE