THE 14TH ANNUAL SHORTY AWARDS

The Shorty Awards honor the best of social media and digital. View this season's finalists!

Special Project

Special Project
From the 15th Annual Shorty Awards

Charlotte's Web Thoughts

Finalist in Blog & Micro-blog

Objectives

"Charlotte's Web Thoughts" is a blog hosted on Substack that discusses politics, religion, and culture from the perspective of Charlotte Clymer, a progressive, Christian trans woman who grew up in conservative Central Texas. Using common sense and humor, she discusses some of the most pressing social and cultural problems of the day. Her central objective has been to build bridges between differing perspectives and lean into a greater truth that, as a society, we could advance much further by finding common ground and rejecting the political polarization that continues to plague daily life in the United States.

Strategy and Execution

"Charlotte's Web Thoughts" primarily functions as an online column that is published 4-6 times per month, much like a typical column in a major newspaper. Every essay is then distributed through the author's large social media network, notably Twitter, where she currently has nearly 400k followers. The primary challenge for the author has been advancing her ideas and commentary through rigorous and transparent marketing. All her essays are free to read, and readers are encouraged to subscribe to her blog via Substack and share widely as moved.

Results

"Charlotte's Web Thoughts" has been enormously successful. In 2022, the author's essays were viewed tens of millions of times and featured on MSNBC, CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, and numerous other national and international news outlets. Her work was named an official nominee for Outstanding Blog at the 34th GLAAD Media Awards and anthologized in a young writer's textbook by W. W. Norton & Co.

Her essays, as further distributed through microblogging on Twitter, regularly went viral and won plaudits from numerous public figures, including Chelsea Clinton, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Mark Hamill, Patton Oswalt, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and countless others.

Her writing has been widely credited as influential on a range of topics, from LGBTQ rights to gun reform to student debt relief to health care for veterans.

Media

Entrant Company / Organization Name

Charlotte Clymer, "Charlotte's Web Thoughts"

Links