The social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, has had a bumpy year.
And by bumpy, we mean users have been leaving it in droves over the course of the last month or so, primarily in protest of the owner Elon Musk’s misinformation-soaked approach to operating the site during an election season rife with hostilities and disagreements over basic facts. Long story short: Twitter is not what it used to be.
It was strangely fitting and epical then about this also being the moment that Bob Dylan, a notoriously cloaked figure, decided to start posting earnestly on what seemed to be his own accord, not that of an assistant or social media intern. At the time of this writing in mid-December of 2024, Dylan has tweeted a total of 11 times, an astounding number considering he’s the same person who almost never gives interviews and says close to nothing outside of lyrics during his concerts.
These posts have brought a tremendous amount of joy to Dylan’s fanbase, as well as the broader musical community — there is something comforting about knowing Dylan is not unlike the rest of us: bored on his phone. To be clear, we have no way of proving that these posts were crafted and sent by Dylan himself, or that the content in them is true, but neither of those things are really our concern here.
Each of Dylan’s tweets are memorable in their own way, but below we’ve taken it upon ourselves to rank them in order of, well, intrigue.
11. Happy Birthday Paul Butterfield
Quite literally about 10 minutes after the completion of this article, just as this writer was putting in finishing touches, Dylan tweeted for the 11th time in 2024. This one was a birthday shoutout to his late friend Paul Butterfield who passed away in 1987 at the age of 44. (Perhaps, if UCR is lucky, Dylan will see this article and tweet about it.)
10. Bob Newhart: Gone
The actor Bob Newhart died on July 18 of this year. Over two months later, Dylan finally found out about it and expressed his condolences online. (For the record: very jarring to see a post from Bob Dylan with the words “Rest in peace Bob.”)
9. Happy Birthday Mary Jo!
This was Dylan’s first tweet, the one that re-introduced him to the platform and confused just about everyone. To this day, no one is sure who Mary Jo is, or why Dylan would allegedly be seeing her in Frankfort, spelled like the capital of Kentucky even though he was scheduled to perform in Frankfurt, Germany a few weeks later.
8. Try ‘The Unknown’ With Lon Chaney
Dylan knows his movies. He also apparently is looking at the replies people post under his tweets. In this instance, he did not tag Nick Newman, managing editor of The Film Stage, a publication that covers all things cinema, but he acknowledged Newman’s request for movie recommendations. To Newman’s profound surprise, Dylan publicly suggested 1927’s The Unknown starring Lon Chaney. This prompted another request from Newman: “Does anybody have recommendations for frame stores in New York.”
7. Parts Unknown With Bob Dylan: New Orleans Edition
On the menu at Dooky Chase’s Restaurant in New Orleans are things like shrimp creole, fried catfish, stewed okra and peach cobbler — southern comfort food classics. But don’t take our word for it, take Dylan’s, who even noted the exact cross section of streets the establishment is located on.
6. The Great Frankfurt Publishing Convention
This particular post is funny when one imagines Dylan, probably dressed inconspicuously in his usual baggy hoodie, meandering around a book publishing convention in Germany (this time spelled correctly) unnoticed. It’s also funny to think that the book Dylan is referring to in this post came out in 1894, many years before anyone who works at Crystal Lake Publishing was born. “This has truly been a blessing and A LOT of fun,” the company later posted themselves, thrilled over the shoutout Dylan had provided. “I also hope this gets more folks picking up books.”
5. Now It the Time for Joy
Now ain’t the time for your tears, now it the time for joy. Believe it or not, Dylan also goes to concerts, just like us regular people, and earlier this year he evidently went to see Nick Cave perform in Paris and found it a moving experience. Plus, it’s comforting to know even a wordsmith like Dylan sometimes makes typos. Cave’s response: “I hadn’t known Bob was at the concert and his tweet was a lovely pulse of joy that penetrated my exhausted, zombied state. … I was happy to see Bob on X, just as many on the Left had performed a Twitterectomy and headed for Bluesky [another social media platform similar to X]. It felt admirably perverse, in a Bob Dylan kind of way.”
4. Apologies to Vlad
This post marked the first time in 2024 that Dylan actually replied to someone else’s post. Whether or not this person’s real name is Vlad or not doesn’t really matter – Dylan addressed him as such anyway and apologized to him for not seeing his Prague restaurant recommendation in time. Vlad is now possibly the only person in existence to have been publicly apologized to by Bob Dylan online.
3. Bob Dylan Meets a Buffalo Sabre
Full disclosure: this tweet ranks as high as it does because this writer hails from Buffalo and is a Sabres supporter. So you can imagine her delight in seeing that Dylan apparently bumped into one of the team members in a European hotel elevator, who invited him to their hockey game. Sadly, Dylan had a scheduling conflict. (Further research by this writer has led her to strongly believe the team member in question was center and alternate captain Tage Thompson, who dabbles in guitar playing.)
2. ‘There’s a Movie About Me Opening Soon’
This is possibly the one and only time Dylan will acknowledge the 2024 biopic about himself, A Complete Unknown, starring Timothee Chalamet. Here, Dylan explains the origins of the film and praises Chalamet, whose response frankly sums up all of our feelings about Dylan’s Twitter odyssey: “Floored. I am so grateful. Thank you Bob.”
1. Please, Make Eye Contact With Bob Dylan
Social media has many downsides but one thing it can do in the right circumstances is set the record straight. Dylan has never been the overly friendly type, but he simply could not go one more day with fans believing that Rule No. 1 in Dylan World is don’t look him in the eyes. “That is just ridiculous.” Case closed.
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Gallery Credit: Michael Gallucci
