The Day Twitter Changed The Fangirl Game

Trump Hotel, NYC, August 19th, 2010. The JoBros were in town for their Jonas Brothers Live in Concert world tour and the Camp Rock 2 premiere, and as usual I found myself as a loyal fan hopelessly waiting outside the Trump hotel to get a picture. I had been doing this for three years and I still hadn't gotten a picture with a single Jonas, and it certainly wasn't for lack of trying. I've waited crazy amounts of time, traveled crazy distances, and nothing. I knew plenty of people it worked out for, I just never got lucky.

Today was the NYC premiere for Camp Rock 2, so I knew they would be in and out of the hotel at some point. We got to the Trump hotel late in the afternoon, and it seemed like a rush had just ended. We just missed them. The only good thing about that was I sat myself down at the barricade and knew when they came back, whenever that would be, I should have my golden opportunity. These things can happen in an instant, and they can also take hours. It's all about luck and timing. This time it took hours.

At around 11pm, a fan exclaimed, "They just left the premiere!" I asked her how she knew that, and she said, "They just tweeted." Tweeted? I wasn't familiar with Twitter, but I knew I had to have it. Having celebrities accessible to you at the tips of your fingers? This sounds like the most amazing invention ever.

Being that they hadn't been back to the hotel in hours and it was getting late, not many of the original crowd stuck around. There were maybe 30 fans waiting, a decent amount, but few enough that they could take a picture with every single one of us. I had the best spot, I was in the corner of the barricades closest to the hotel so I would be the last person they passed on their way in. My friend and I made a game plan that she would take a picture of me and Joe, and I would take a picture of her and Kevin. Ideally we would both get a picture with all three of them, but hey, we weren't trying to be greedy.

A black GMC truck pulled up and out came Kevin and Danielle, then Nick, then Joe. It was the first time I had seen Danielle in person, and I was googly eyed over how cute her and Kevin were together. Kevin and Nick came to our side first, and I successfully took a picture of my friend with each of them. I was so nervous about missing Joe that I didn't even have my friend take pictures of me with Nick and Kevin. Joe had spent so much time on the other side that I thought he may never make it to us. These things happen within minutes, and they had already been out there for quite some time which was really nice of them.

I wasn't going to let this happen, so I called Joe over. Even though I got exactly what I wanted, I was shocked when he acknowledged me. I think I didn't expect him to actually hear me from 6 feet away with 30 heckling fans. He signaled to me that he'd be with me in a minute, and I kid you not when he walked over to my side he came straight to me. I asked him to take a picture, and because I'm 5'2" and we were separated by a barricade, I had to step on the barricade to get close enough to him to have my friend take a picture. I'm literally leaning on him for what feels like a significant amount of time, and I'm thinking, "What the hell is she doing?!" My friend realizing this moment was about to escape us says, "Sorry, hold on...it was on zoom!"

Now I'm freaking out that the picture didn't come out and that he might walk away because he doesn't have all day for me! It was bad enough it felt like this picture was going to be way too close up, let alone if it didn't come out at all! A true showman, he didn't waiver for a second. Joe waited until my friend confirmed that the picture came out and I was elated. It was 12:30 in the morning and I was the happiest person on the face of the earth.

I did it. I finally did it. I GOT A PICTURE WITH JOE JONAS. You'd think this was the fairytale ending and that it was all over because I finally got what I wanted after all these years, but once I experienced it with my absolute favorite celebrities of all time, it made me never want to let go of that feeling. Fangirls know how depressing it is after there's months and months of buildup for a meet & greet and then in just seconds it's all over. This day is when it really all started. This is the day I got on top of my game. Thank you Twitter.