A hotshot Hollywood producer named Mark Horvath, who lost everything to alcoholism and ended up living rough in 1995, is the latest darling of the social media industry. He teaches vulnerable, marginalized, and often under-educated homeless people how to use Twitter to tell their stories and put pressure on policy-makers – as well as providing up-to-the-second documentation of homelessness in America. For all the Twitter-naysayers out there (or those who are simply perplexed by the value of following Kim Kardashian‘s breakfast preferences), Horvath’s whrrling and tweeting (@hardlynormal) activities prove emphatically that people-powered media really can lead to successful organized resistance – and make waves where they matter most.