Charlene Grandview heard small taps on her outside window as she sat in her living room in Springfield, Illinois. As she looked at the window, there seemed to be some sort of watery substance that was hitting the window panes. Unsure where to look for further details on the mystery, she logged onto her trusty Twitter and began checking the Tweets of people she knew were local.
Many of the Tweets discussed rain or the rain they were hearing outside their window. Many of them used the rain as an excuse for not exercising or any number of other excuses for not doing a simple act. These numerous Tweets she read and responded to, affirmed for Hoffer that it was, in fact, raining outside her window.
“Sure, I could have just checked Weather.Com or logged on to my local online news source and found out if it’s raining in my area, but I figured Twitter would be more up to date than those sources,” Hoffer claims.
When asked if she considered simply stepping outside to see if it was raining or not, she looked befuddled and said, “But, I could get wet. Plus, I wanted to see what was trending at the time.”