Twitter Good For Something

For those who believe Twitter is a vacuous,  insignificant playground of self-indulgence, it actually served a purpose for musician Stephen Fearing when Air Canada misplaced his guitar.

Photo: Twitter.com/StephenFearing

Fearing is the guitarist for Blackie & The Rodeo Kings, and he was returning from England when the airline lost his precious Manszer guitar – for two days.  He had traveled from London to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and was at the luggage carousel when he got a sinking feeling.

“You wait and wait and wait and gradually you see you’re one of the last people standing at the conveyor belt,” he told  CBC News. “And the conveyor belt stops and you know you’re in trouble.”

Fearing attempted to endure Air Canada’s automated system but got nowhere. He also talked to local airline officials, but that didn’t help either, he said.

Finally, he began tweeting about his troubles Aug. 28, and his Twitter followers inundated Air Canada’s Twitter account with their pleas.

“People are rallying to help me and it’s humbling, but if I’m Joe Blow you don’t have this kind of resources and you’re dealing with Delhi,” he said.

Within minutes of speaking with CBC News, a baggage specialist called him to tell him the guitar was recovered. Air Canada has yet to say where it went in the first place, according to CBC News.

“I know it’s in a good case and they’ve found it now so that to me is a huge thing, whether it takes 24 hours to get here now or not, I can wait another day.”

(We’ve included many of the tweets below)

Of course, this harkens back to Dave Carroll’s famed online battle with United ….

And he’s not the only musician to write a song about this kind of problem. Loudon Wainwright III has one, and it deserves its own share of attention.

Here are some of the tweets:

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