--- title: Man Responds to John Lewis Tweets description: John Lewis gets deluged by messages meant for a British department store of the same name—and replies to every tweet in good humor. canonical: https://time.com/4566624/patient-man-happy-to-engage-with-everyone-who-thinks-hes-a-popular-store/ author: Raisa Bruner article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-11-10T21:16:57.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:38:36.449Z og:title: This Man Keeps Responding to People's Accidental Tweets og:description: John Lewis gets deluged by messages meant for a British department store. og:url: https://time.com/4566624/patient-man-happy-to-engage-with-everyone-who-thinks-hes-a-popular-store/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltba8075c2b4e9ff47/6988ae0ca988caaf206ba1f7/john-lewis.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4928 og:image:height: 2772 og:image:alt: BRITAIN-ECONOMY-INFLATION-RETAIL og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Man Keeps Responding to People's Accidental Tweets twitter:description: John Lewis gets deluged by messages meant for a British department store. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltba8075c2b4e9ff47/6988ae0ca988caaf206ba1f7/john-lewis.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Patient Man Happy to Engage With Everyone Who Thinks He's a Popular Store on Twitter > Sponsored content. 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It curates the day's top headlines with TIME's reporting and analysis across politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. It is free to join at time.com/newsletters. #### How do I sign up for The Brief? The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically.  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Nov 10, 2016 9:16 PM UTC  Shoppers walk past a John Lewis department store on Oxford Street in London on August 13, 2016. Shoppers walk past a John Lewis department store on Oxford Street in London on August 13, 2016. Niklas Halle'n—Getty Images  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Nov 10, 2016 9:16 PM UTC John Lewis is two things: a [chain of upmarket department stores](http://time.com/4566033/john-lewis-christmas-advert-2016/?iid=sr-link2) across the United Kingdom—and the name of a computer science educator, father of four, and apparently very polite human in Blacksburg, Virginia, who happens to have the Twitter handle [@johnlewis](https://twitter.com/johnlewis). The former probably would not even know about the latter, if not for the customers and brands looking to interact with the store who end up sending their messages to the man. But John Lewis (the man), who describes himself as a “social liberal, atheist, and not a retail store,” is one of the most pleasant denizens of the accidental internet. He customizes a reply to every single mistake message that lands in his Twitter inbox. (The store, it turns out, has the account [@johnlewisretail](https://twitter.com/johnlewisretail).) Recently, for instance, a [heartstring-tugging new holiday ad](http://time.com/4566033/john-lewis-christmas-advert-2016/?iid=sr-link2) for the store has been making the rounds, and John Lewis is here to be a part of the conversation, on this topic and so many others. Remarkably, every response is unique… and, although often tongue-in-cheek, all of them are quite polite. (The store is lucky they don’t have a [rogue Twitter troll](http://time.com/4457110/internet-trolls/?iid=sr-link4) associating with the brand instead.) Take a look: > [](https://twitter.com/johnlewis/status/796758340760195077) > [](https://twitter.com/johnlewis/status/796739772194717696) > [](https://twitter.com/johnlewis/status/796737280320929792) > [](https://twitter.com/johnlewis/status/796732767308550149) > [](https://twitter.com/johnlewis/status/792375230937174016) > [](https://twitter.com/johnlewis/status/791249677630967808) > [](https://twitter.com/johnlewis/status/790309520056516608) If you want to get lost in a mindlessly amusing stream of tweets, this is the harmless, pleasant, warm-hearted feed to do it in. Although sometimes John Lewis does break from responses to share his own original thoughts. > [](https://twitter.com/johnlewis/status/796757399747129344) \[h/t [Buzzfeed](https://www.buzzfeed.com/lukelewis/john-lewis-is-the-most-patient-and-polite-man-on-twitter?utm%5Fterm=.vhozqERX7#.xsYLXMznm)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4566624/patient-man-happy-to-engage-with-everyone-who-thinks-hes-a-popular-store/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4566624/patient-man-happy-to-engage-with-everyone-who-thinks-hes-a-popular-store/"},"headline":"Patient Man Happy to Engage With Everyone Who Thinks He's a Popular Store on Twitter","datePublished":"2016-11-10T21:16:57.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:38:36.449Z","description":"John Lewis won't let you down","url":"https://time.com/4566624/patient-man-happy-to-engage-with-everyone-who-thinks-hes-a-popular-store/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Retail","viral"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltba8075c2b4e9ff47/6988ae0ca988caaf206ba1f7/john-lewis.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Raisa Bruner","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltba8075c2b4e9ff47/6988ae0ca988caaf206ba1f7/john-lewis.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"BRITAIN-ECONOMY-INFLATION-RETAIL","caption":"BRITAIN-ECONOMY-INFLATION-RETAIL","creditText":"Niklas Halle'n—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4566624/patient-man-happy-to-engage-with-everyone-who-thinks-hes-a-popular-store/","name":"Patient Man Happy to Engage With Everyone Who Thinks He's a Popular Store on Twitter"}}]}] ```