Last weekend, I had the pleasure and the honor of participating in The #DJBreitbart Project, a
wonderfully creative tribute to Andrew Breitbart.
Anyone who followed Andrew on Twitter or knew him personally was well aware of one thing about
the happy warrior: he loved his retro and 70s/80s Brit Synth-Pop music. It was an undeniable and
endearing trait of Andrew’s persona.
Every so often, we were treated to Andrew Breitbart, the DJ. He’d take a break from taunting his
adversaries on Twitter or retweeting hate tweets to share some of his favorite music tracks with tweeps,
hash-tagging them #DJBreitbart.
And so it was a fitting tribute last Sunday when, for 24 hours straight, 24 Twitter DJs - bloggers, activists,
employees and friends of Andrew – took to Twitter to blast out links to tunes, each tweet accompanied by
commentary about the song or about Andrew himself. Each hour ushered in a new DJ, and a fresh
set of tweets with a new perspective on the man who wanted to make capitalism and liberty its own brand
of punk rock cool.
The online event was the brainchild of fellow Breitbart contributor, Evan Pokroy. It was an effort
that developed organically on Twitter. I asked Evan what inspired him to come up with the idea for
#DJBreitbart Project.
I had seen everybody in my timeline talking about fighting the fight and retweeting the hate
tweets and all the disgusting things that were being said [about Andrew].
I remember most of my personal interactions with Andrew were about music and how he just
loved to stop for a while and tweet about it. So, I thought what would be the most fitting way to
remember him, without all the hate and anger that the politics engendered in people, would be to
go back to the music. So, it kind of evolved from that.
And that’s what scores of Twitter followers did. We went back to the music. So much so that
#DJBreitbart was trending on Twitter quite a bit over a period of 24 hours.
Followers of the event commented that it gave them a deeper view into the real Andrew Breitbart, the
person who was a friend and loved-one to so many. Even people who disagreed with Andrew on pretty
much everything said the event and its music made them see him in a different light. And you got that
sense from some of the DJs’ tweets.




Pokroy told me that the reaction to the event has been “pretty amazing.” Many have tweeted that
it should be an annual event. When I asked him about that possibility, he took the opportunity to express
his gratitude for the people who jumped in to help put it together.
As I was getting it together I thought an annual thing would be great. Lots of people have
been very positive; the reaction has been pretty amazing. I don't know if it will be the same
format as this year; it was a lot of work getting together, and I had a lot of last minute help from a
wonderful group of volunteers.”
I think that was one of the things that surprised me the most. A couple days before, I put out a
call to see if anyone wanted to help with the website and I got such a wonderful response. They
ended up doing a much better job than I could have.
I have to thank all the folks who participated. It was wonderfully fun and I got to meet
some great folks who helped: @prupaine, @hlawver, @ballstalum96, @mrsimplesense,
@juleslalaland, @texicalirose and @sdigda.
Lastly, when I asked Pokroy what inspired him about Andrew, I think he summed things up wonderfully.
His total lack of fear. Most of us go through life worried about what people will say, how they'll
react. He always struck me as someone so comfortable with himself that he had nothing to be
afraid of. From anyone. He didn't need to prove anything to anyone. He knew who he was and
what he was doing. The rest was just icing. I wish I could do that.
Perhaps Andrew’s time on this earth was meant to teach us that we CAN all do that.
A complete set of each of the DJ’s playlists and tweets can be found at The #DJBreitbart Project website.