INTERVIEW: @WeFoughtAbout with Alan Linic & Claire Meyer

Slim Love Finds Fame

@WeFoughtAboutIf you haven’t already heard about the rapid rise of fame for the @WeFoughtAbout Twitter handle, you’re probably the only one. Chicago improvisers Alan Linic and Claire Meyer have been dating since March and decided to start a Twitter handle to document some of the everyday things that triggered disputes in their relationship. Last week, NYMAG got wind of this project, published a piece and it spread like viral wildfire. We’re talking coast to coast and all throughout the world. They were featured on Good Morning America this morning and a number of other major broadcast networks have reached out as well. Alan and Claire have become overnight celebrities and I wanted to take a minute to serve as a voice from the Chicago comedy community to not only congratulate them on their success but also to give them a bit of a voice on their home turf.

You guys started @WeFoughtAbout a few months ago. What was the inspiration behind this?
We thought it would be a fun side project.

Your initial push was to get noticed by the RedEye and up until about a week ago, you had roughly 200 followers. In the last week, you’ve been published across dozens of websites and your Twitter following has ballooned into over 15,000. What happened?
Matt Byrne helped us put together a fun piece for The Steamroller. Then a very dear friend and fellow improviser, Zack Shornick, posted it on his wall- his sister (who writes for NYMAG) saw it and liked it. The next day we were interviewing with NYMAG’s blog the Cut. After that it all just kind of blew up. We even have a parody Twitter.

Good Morning America contacted you and interviewed you Tuesday night, what was that like?
Bizarre. We found out the morning of that the interview would take place in our home. That was the most stressful part of it all- our home was not “GMA ready.”

Did you have any idea or any hope that this feed would bring this kind of response?
Absolutely not! We kind of got yanked from obscurity and we are still in shock about it. We’re happy that it found the following that it has and that people seem to at the very least laugh about it and at best identify with it. At the same time we can’t help but be confused at how this has continued to grow with such momentum. When we were approached to do NY Magazine, we thought that was it—one and done. Then The Atlantic picked it up and we thought THAT was it—and cool beans! Then a bunch of fun smaller publications started writing their own articles and we thought “okay, THIS is clearly it.” Obviously we have been wrong every time so far and along the way have appeared in articles in other countries, on the radio, on television… We were happy to truck along at under 200 followers when we first started. Until last Friday, either of our personal Twitter handles individually had more followers than @WeFoughtAbout.

How has all this attention affected you both individually and your relationship as a whole?
It kind of changes by the minute—we have felt everything from pure excitement to needing to hide out for a bit. At times it can be a little overwhelming but it helps that we know it’s temporary. While all of this has been happening we have still been going to work, visiting family, being together and doing improv.

How do you plan to use this new found fandom, if at all?
The project is so different from all of the other things we are pursuing that it’s hard to imagine any of the following bleeding between them. We’re trying to stay open-minded, but we have no plan.

As with all things that go viral, haters are gonna hate. Some mean things have been said, how are you dealing with the fact that?
This is one of the things that we do not handle the same way.

CLAIRE: For the most part I can easily laugh at what people are saying. The ones about wishing Alan and I physical harm make me very uncomfortable though. It’s just jarring to read those particular comments. I give the trolls zero attention. I don’t feed them. I don’t make eye contact.

ALAN: I love the trolls. I have always found angry comments hilarious and I’m almost relieved to discover that angry comments directed at me are every bit as fun. I have taken to responding to our most vocal haters on my personal Twitter handle and encouraging them. I have made a few new friends who have no idea that I’m behind “the most heinous thing that ever happened” on the site. Claire and I did team up to write a sort of “ultimate hater’s guide” to our relationship for The Date Report, but that was mostly because we thought it’d be funny.

Do you feel extra pressure to post to @WeFoughtAbout now?
Not really. There’s a natural wax and wane to how often we post.

Is there another wave of press coming or do you think this craze is starting to die down at all?
Hell if we know. Very little has been in our hands. If we had to guess it would die down any minute but we’ve been saying that all week.

Is this something you’d like to continue or repeat or are you kind of hoping to be able to go back to living your “normal” lives?
We would drive ourselves mad trying to recreate this. The good news is, we dig our normal lives.

What has been the best part/biggest learning that you’ve taken away from all of this?
The best part has been connecting with people from all over the world. We have a big following in Australia—which is just unreal. Alan’s favorite part has been the haters.

Claire, dear, why are you always crying?
I’m an emotional critter. Always have been. NO REGRETS.

As a contradiction to this entire escapade, what do you both agree on and what is your favorite thing about the other person?
We both agree that being honest and comfortable with our  disagreements is better than pretending we don’t have any. We also agree that Ginny Weasley was the worst possible choice for Harry Potter.

CLAIRE: My favorite thing about Alan is how playful and weird he is (and that he has no idea he’s weird).

ALAN: My favorite thing about Claire is how funny and caring she is.

Any final comments?
We’ve been very privileged to be surrounded by the most supportive people in the world—the Chicago improv community. Without that we wouldn’t have met and even if we had, this project never would have taken off.

 

In summary, Alan and Claire are two individually lovely, kind, humble and wonderful people. Together they are a funny, slim love delight. In true Chicago comedy fashion, let’s talk about shows! If you would like to see some of the other, less viral, work these two put up all over town, please check them out below.

CLAIRE:

ALAN

BLOG: The Awkward Phase

 

Here are just a smattering of articles that have been written about @WeFoughtAbout:

Did you like this? Share it:

posted on November 15, 2013 by Kiley Peters posted in Chatter, Interviews

Comments are closed.