Back when Derek started his career, he joked (or maybe he wasn’t joking) that he needed Bryan Allain and me to help him get word out about his solo career. Bryan had built a body of work with caedmonscall.net (though he’ll tell you that he had lots of help), and with the two of us, we certainly had a lot of desire to make these things happen. Bryan and I both like to write and be opinionated, and we had jobs that would let us spend our time on supporting our friend. That professional leeway led us to doing things like Bryan skipping out on a conference while I drove over to Atlanta to pick him up for a drive to South Carolina to surprise DW at a house show. Oh the things that we could do in our 20s, right, Bryan?

Perhaps the zenith of this symbiotic relationship came in October 2006 when Bryan and I went to Nashville to (do something I’ve forgotten; watch a show, maybe?). Bryan and I successfully schemed our way into crashing at the Webb house (Sandra was on the road). Bryan says that he and Derek were up past 3am talking, but I remember wiping out and going to sleep on the couch. I remember it as a good time, even though my truck did kick the bucket the next day.

Anyway, I have a lot of these goofy stories, but the simple fact is true: Derek doesn’t need us anymore. As of this writing, he has 32,226 followers on Twitter. That’s, um, more people than visit our site by, um, lots. So yeah. And even when SOLA-MI was going on, we were not the source for that sleuthing: Jonathan Guenther was.

So we’re going to do the right thing by the Web traffic of this site: we’re no longer a blog. We will do things like have lyrics available, and hopefully we’ll continue to do right—and hopefully better—by those things now and in the future. [After all, sometimes we bail Derek's ass out.] But we’re going to stop even pretending that we keep up with Derek any better than you can by following him on Twitter.

We had a good run, but Twitter killed the fan site, and that’s okay!

Peace, Love, and Bert’s Chili,

Geof

A couple weeks ago, Derek sarcastically responded to people who had been criticizing his statements from an article in The Huffington Post about tolerance in the contemporary American church. Plenty of people had reasoned arguments. Plenty more were really sarcastic, sophomoric takedowns of Derek, casting aspersions all over the place.

As someone who considers Derek to be a friend, this dismayed me greatly, especially because he and I come from different faith traditions, as I am a United Methodist and hold to its tenets. You can disagree with someone, even strongly, and do so in a very loving way. I came to know Derek starting in the 2003 timeframe, right as his solo career was kicking off. Everyone who knew of my faith leanings knew that Derek and I were opposed in a lot of soteriological ways, and they also knew that Derek used to really rough people up for being Arminians back in the day. He and I have never had a cross word about soteriology, because we believe that we share so much more in our theology than we don’t.

being a semi-public, unofficial spokesperson for a particular way of looking at the world is an odd thing

Sunday.January 16.2011 4:14 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@derekwebb

derek webb

as a general rule: i'm fine with responses and i'm fine if folks wanna unfollow. but please don't issue an 'unfollow threat' as a response

Sunday.January 16.2011 4:58 pm via Twitter for iPadReplyRetweetFavorite

@derekwebb

derek webb

I’ve created an Editorial category for this entry, purely because I want to say that anyone issuing an unfollow threat is acting foolishly. On Twitter, you choose whom you follow. On Twitter, you choose whom you follow. On Twitter, you choose whom you follow.

If Derek Webb says something that you don’t like on Twitter, don’t follow him. If you don’t like the things he says in interviews, just don’t keep him on your horizon. Derek Webb doesn’t owe you anything for your fandom. You’ve bought his records, you’ve attended his concerts, and you’ve told your friends about him. You’ve helped him make a living so that he can provide for his family. If you decide that you don’t like his music for any artistic reason, stop supporting it. Don’t buy it. Don’t recommend it to friends. Don’t go to a show.

The way that I have always understood Derek’s career is this: he tells the truth as he understands it. I think that we as Christians understand that none of us fully perceive God’s Truth. Because of this, we are left with everyone grasping for the truth as they understand it. There’s an old saw that the level of a man’s intelligence is the degree to which he agrees with you. If you though that Derek Webb was really smart when he wrote She Must and Shall Go Free and really offbase when he wrote Stockholm Syndrome, then you’ve got the problem here.

Reasonable people can reasonably agree. Unreasonable people issue unfollow threats on Twitter. I firmly believe that an unfollow threat says much, much more about the person issuing it than the target.