Culture

Twitter’s Dad Culture Is Absolutely Glorious And You Need To Be A Part Of It

DADS.

by Alex McKinnon  2 January 2015

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Dad culture is probably the greatest cultural phenomenon since the Renaissance, and even that comes off as a little overrated tbh. In my time on the Internet, I have stumbled on some truly wonderful examples of Dad culture, especially on Twitter. Parody accounts, real-life stories of Dadness, photos; all of them inspiring. All of them Dads.

I have wanted to write this article for a very long time. Even when I wasn’t thinking about it consciously, something deep inside me would whisper: “Do not keep these Dads to yourself. Share them with the world. Show the people these Dads.”

Here they are — Twitter’s best Dads. Use them well.

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“Having a #coffee”: The dark side of Coffee Dad

At first glance, @coffee_dad is nothing more than the eagerly amateur efforts of a tech-blind Dad to document his love of coffee. Drinking coffee, buying coffee, waiting for coffee, brewing coffee, thinking about coffee, going out to get some coffee, morning coffee, lunch coffee, waking up with coffee; all are Tweet worthy in the world of Coffee Dad, alongside a fundamental misunderstanding of how to use hashtags.

But if you scroll for long enough, Coffee Dad’s obsessively coffee-centric persona starts to show cracks, specifically about a tragic event in his past. Screenshot 2015-01-02 at 1.31.34 PM The untimely death of Coffee Dad’s son, a haunting loss that torments him still, comes bursting through the deluge of #coffee content at random times, seemingly for no reason.

Dig deep enough, and you can begin to piece together the circumstances of Coffee Son’s death: a motorcycle accident after an argument.

Whether his obsession with coffee is a coping mechanism remains unclear, but Cofee Dad always pushes through the pain. Sooner or later, though, we come back to coffee. We must continue drinking coffee.

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“My wife left me”: The sad, lonely tale of Single Dad

Unlike Coffee Dad, @Lonely_Dad is completely up-front about how miserable he is; the content oscillates between your standard dad on the Internet, bitter recriminations against his ex-wife Susan, and grappling with his own deep loneliness.

Single Dad is constantly on the precipice, obsessing over his ex-wife’s infidelity and his nonexistent sex life with a quiet, deranged fury.

Occasionally Single Dad tries to put himself back out there, but it doesn’t go so well. He misses Susan too much.

Good luck, Single Dad.

Never mind.

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Finding the Ur-Dad: The Toast, Dad Magazine and Mallory Ortberg

The Toast‘s Mallory Ortberg is arguably the greatest curator and promoter of Dad culture alive today; her work with Dad Magazine editors Jaya Saxena and Matthew Lubchansky is hugely important to the genre.

Post by The Toast.

Back in October, Ortberg asked Twitter to bring her the most Dad instance of Dadness a Dad had ever Dadded.

It was a bold challenge, and one the Internet rose to.

The responses were overwhelming; Dad-dom tales of such diversity and verve that not even Ortberg herself could have anticipated the reaction.

Even with such competiton, Ortberg’s pick of the best Dad story seems appropriate.

Read the thread in full here. It’s incredible.

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Bonus Dad #content: Instagram’s “DILFs of Disneyland”

Surely I don’t need to explain this concept to you.

Fucking glorious.

Never stop.

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And because a post about Dads wouldn’t be complete without it, here is a photo of my Dad at the moment his Dad level transcended space and time.

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Feature image via The Toast.