Interview: Why Twitter is all this metal music writer needs online

Eli Enis is a 27 year old editor at Revolver magazine, a contributing writer for Vice, Rolling Stone, Billboard, and Stereogum—just to name a few. Enis is based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where he also records his weekly music-review podcast, Endless Scroll. 

Siena: Hi Eli, thank you for talking with me. Can you tell me about your favorite social media platform for your journalism? 

Eli Enis: Of course, I’m happy to. And, it’s Twitter — by a long shot for me personally. 

Siena: I agree, I love Twitter.The discourse is unbeatable.

Eli Enis: The discourse, I mean you get everything first, you know? Like, it's going to be bad because sometimes because someone dies and 700 people are tweeting about it in the same minute.

Siena: It can be a lot of.

Eli Enis: It's addictive.

Siena: Yeah, they're good at what they do. So it sounds like you use it [Twitter] a lot for breaking information, maybe? On Twitter you kind of get the scoop ahead of the curve ahead of the media. When you obtain that kind of information, do you go through a process of verifying what you're seeing? Do you just look into accounts and see if they seem legit, or what's your verification process when you find something interesting?

Eli Enis: Yeah. Usually I'll use it where I work, at Revolver Magazine. We do metal and rock news. So we follow artists who announce things on their own profile...new music, mainly. We take that as legit if they announce a record. We know that that's verified and we report it. And mostly it's most useful to see what other outlets are publishing, so if another metal outlet posts something that we haven't, we look into it and use that as a jumping-off point. So, yeah, sometimes our verification is just combing bits of information from Twitter accounts—that is harder to verify.

Siena: So from your experience, social media plays a large role in covering your beat, which would really be seem the Hard Rock. How would you define your beat?

Eli Enis: Yeah, like right now it's metal. I mean, I cover a lot of different types of music but currently, metal music, punk music, things of that nature. And yeah, social media, that's just where all the journalism is right now. I mean, when I was in school years ago we were learning about social media, we were using it for classes and stuff but it wasn't...

Siena: Integral?

Eli Enis: No, I mean my program (in college) was graded in a lot of ways but it definitely wasn't fully aware of how everything literally happens online. Like all media companies are based online now and it's all about web traffic. So, yes, social media is the main driving force. That's where we post our articles and they get read on social media. 

Siena: Through clicking the links that are posted through Twitter and whatnot?

Eli Enis: Exactly. We can publish something and no one's going to really click on it until we actually share it on our social media feeds. That's when we actually start seeing the traffic. 

Siena: Interesting. So when you just post an article to Revolver, you're not getting as much traffic. People aren't going right to that site?

Eli Enis: No I'm sure there are some diehards who do. 

Siena: Yes, your loyalists?

Eli Enis: Our loyalists. But it's sad that there's not as many of them as we want. I mean, our loyalists just know to look at our feeds, honestly. They follow us on Facebook and we'll see that when we post something on there—a big news item—and within minutes it'll be blowing up because we have the analytics on Google and all that...we obsessively check over that sort of thing. It's all about how it's presented on social media. 

Siena: I'm sure. And I mean, at least for me, that's how I read articles too. It's through going through my Twitter feed. Which leads me to the topic of news consumption. Do you have a morning routine when you're trying to get up to speed? Are you just going through Twitter or do you look at other outlets as well? 

Eli Enis: I mean, it's Twitter. I know that's not an interesting answer.

Siena: No, that’s great. It’s honest. 

Eli Enis: Yeah. I don't really get news on Facebook anymore. I use that for seeing what family members are up to. That's pretty much it. And Instagram, I feel like it's good for certain things, but the chronological feed that Twitter has, it's ideal for seeing what's happening now.

Siena: Right.

Eli Enis: I follow a ton of journalists. There will be hard news stuff and music stuff and I just see whatever they posted overnight and what they're posting in the morning. And then see what my favorite outlets have reported, if anything. Just doing that morning scroll.

Siena: The morning scroll…everyone does it. Can I read something you wrote? It was for a Vice article, I loved it. I, oddly enough-I'm 22-but I still feel like I relate to it. You said 'As Tik Tok and Billie Eilish hijacked the conversation, it feels like culture is accelerating faster than we can keep up. Am I supposed to feel like this at 25?' How do you keep up?

Eli Enis: I know. I mean, it feels like a losing battle a lot of the time.

Siena: It does.

Eli Enis: I know that I'm missing out on a lot of things by not being on TikTok, but I know that if I started using TikTok seriously...

Siena: It's a black hole.

Eli Enis: Yeah, I would spend too much time on it. I mean, honestly, I already spent too much time on Twitter. I use it for work and there's just so much on social media alone that's hard to keep up with. I mean, I keep up with the things that I'm personally interested in, it's mostly just music. Just a music freak.

Siena: So Twitter is still relevant for your niche, right? Like, you don't really feel like you need to be up to date too much on Tik Tok and Billie Eilish? You don't need to know what's happening with the younger scene?

Eli Enis: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I know I can search that out if I want it, but I'm not completely disconnected from it by any means. It's funny, that piece I wrote a couple of years ago. I feel like even since then I have sort of become more accepting of just like, all right, there's certain things that I'm just not going to connect with the way that I would if I was 21 or so, you know, or probably 16. Just as when I was 16 there are things I didn't connect with with people that are my age, 27. Whether because you don't have the same social circles or you just don't have the same interests.

Siena: I get it.

Eli Enis: Yeah, but I feel like it's uniquely strange in our era which is the context of that article because [older generations] can't see everything happening. Like with our parents, it's like, OK, well, if you just don't buy that magazine, I guess you're just not going to know about that. Or if you don't have friends who are from this specific area of the world, you might just not know what's happening in that city. But now you can see exactly what's happening in that city and every city has just content overload. I mean, I can keep up.

Siena: No. I don't have TikTok either, and I definitely feel like there are trends and my friends will say things and reference music that I've never heard of. I'm like, 'What are you saying?' And they're like, 'Oh, you're so old, Siena.' I'm just not on Tik Tok! Come on, cut me a break. So yeah. You're not alone in that.

Eli Enis: I'm glad I'm not the only one. 

Siena: And you have your personal Twitter account, which is how I reached out to you. How do you feel like you balance your personal work and your professional image? I understand that with the way you write and the kind of topics you're covering, it's great, if not better, that you have some edgy personality. You don't need to really watch your language as much. But do you try to maintain at least a bit of a professional vibe to your Tweets and how you interact with people?

Eli Enis: Yeah, I mean, I do. And even more so now than I used to when I was in college or whatever—just starting out. I just don't really use Twitter as much for venting personal frustrations at this point.

Siena: Right.

Eli Enis: It's a great outlet for that in some ways. But yeah, I guess, like now that I have a decent amount of people that follow me who are my peers, I have always been very conscious about not getting into arguments with other journalists that are needless. You know, like I learned when I asked for mentor advice when I was younger, I would ask older journalists what they recommend and it was just to not get into petty sparring matches on social media…the way that social media is obviously so good at.

Siena: Too easy, almost.

Eli Enis: Yeah, but just like knowing that I write about fucking rock music. Like, it's not a big deal. I can be more casual. But at the same time, I'm always respectful and I share my opinions on music and artists, but not by being mean or tearing down other writers. Just keeping in mind that people who I don't know are seeing things. 

Siena: Right and people who you respect.

Eli Enis: Sure. Yeah, and future bosses, maybe things of nature. It's not worth it to burn a bridge like that, in my experience.

Siena: Do you observe a lot of confrontations though?

Eli Enis: I do. Yeah, I mean, I see it all the time. Even friends of mine, people subtweeting each other. And in music journalism, you see bands going out against bands and you know I'm friends with bands too so it's all just a part of that [music] world. I don't think it's worth it ultimately, even though it's satisfying in the moment. I don't really have any professional grudges but I do know people who are like, 'Well, I can't write for that place anymore because I kind of like, shat on their articles too much.' 

Siena: I could imagine that’s something to avoid. So I think another thing, I don't know if you would consider this social media, but I kind of do—at least the way that they're shared and talked about in my immediate circle—you have a podcast.

Eli Enis: Yeah, yeah I do.

Siena: How has that been for you? Just overall, the experience of publishing something and knowing that you have people listening to your hour-long conversations, what's it like?

Eli Enis: I try not to think about that too much… It's fun. I've been doing it for three years, first just with one friend. And now there are three co-hosts. Our listenership was very very small, it's still pretty small. But within the past few months, it's grown a good amount and it's been very cool. It's funny because like, I give professional energy. I know people could hear these things and even to think that my voice is being preserved.

Siena: ...Forever.

Eli Enis: I think being able to vocally explain my opinions on something lends itself to me being more honest than I would be even on Twitter. Like, we do music criticism, so we critique Albums and it's not always positive. On Twitter, it's like, I do that sometimes, but someone can search it up...

Siena: Out of context a bit.

Eli Enis: Everyone's watching. Yeah, exactly. They don't even know my tone. With a podcast you can hear my tone of voice, you can hear the nuances of the conversation and it lends itself better in discourse than Twitter.

Siena: I listened to a bit of your podcast and you were critiquing, I think it was the Anxious album, but you were being really adamant about the fact that although that genre reminds you of music you listened to when you were 15, you said it's not that it's meant for 15 year olds, it's just that that's how old you were when you were listening to that music, and that’s what it reminds you of. So I feel like you do a really good job of being respectful of artists, for going out there and making their music.And like you mentioned with Twitter, if you say something negative people are going to come at you for it, whereas when it’s vocal, you have a little bit more freedom.

Eli Enis: People are always going to read reviews with a preconceived notion on Twitter. People go into things with bad faith in mind, or good faith in mind; versus with a podcast, you're hearing someone talk. It's more natural. You can make a better judgment. And also, thank you so much for listening, I mean you did your research for this interview.

Siena: I plan on keeping it up. I was talking to my roommate, like, ‘these guys are sick. You got to hear this,’ I was gassing you guys up! 

Eli Enis: Thank you.

Siena: Really, it was a fun one to listen to it for sure. There's a YouTube channel I check out. It's titled, "listening to *insert album name* with my dad." And that's really interesting. You should check it out. The dad is like, really skilled with listening to music and pointing out what instruments are being played, and the son just really looks up to him and shows him these new albums. It's really fun. Yeah, I kind of got that vibe from your podcast.

Eli Enis: I’ll be sure to check it out. 

Siena: Okay so for me, I kind of am trying to make an entrance back into Twitter. I've had Twitter since 2012, when I was in junior high. How would you recommend navigating Twitter for someone who's where I'm at. I'm about to graduate at the end of the term and I want to maybe be relevant, maybe share articles, write my own... Any recommendations?

Eli Enis: Yeah, sure. I'm not sure if you have already, but follow any writer you admire. Especially back when I was really ramping up my Twitter usage when I graduated, I pretty much just followed everyone at a certain outlet if I liked it. I followed almost every editor at Vice—which is a lot of them. That's how you can be aware of editors putting out pitch calls for freelance assignments. You can see them sharing the work that's being shared on that website especially if it's a website you're interested in writing for, you can see the type of output that they're producing. Follow as many writers in your beat as you can. It's really great for surveying the land. 

Siena: Become a Twitter Alchemist. Got it! Cool.

Eli Enis: That’s right.

Siena: Well, that's pretty much all of the big questions I have. Is there anything else that you wanted to share about social media in general, or any other hot takes?

Eli Enis: Thanks, I got to do a podcast in an hour so I think I have to save my hot takes.

Siena: Of course, I'll let you go then!

Eli Enis: No worries. I mean social media is great in a lot of ways. It certainly can be a drag in other ways just because it's—you know—it has consumed our lives in many ways. But I just want to emphasize it's absolutely essential for modern-day journalism; whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is just how it is. It's awesome that you are really taking time to learn about it and use it well. It sounds like you're going to do a great job.

Siena: Thanks, I hope so. I'll keep following you on Twitter. You'll be one of the people I base my work off of. 

Eli Enis: Awesome, but don't follow everything I say.

Siena: With a grain of salt!

Eli Enis: Yeah, for sure.

Siena: Okay well Eli, I look forward to hearing more from you. And good luck with your podcast recording today. Thank you for speaking with me today.

Eli Enis: Thank you so much. And thanks for reaching out.