I've known for a couple years now that Twitter is a social media vehicle rife with stridency, ad hominem attacks and even hate. I still stay on for several reasons: It's still wildly popular; my alumni chapter has an account; I don't want to get chased out of something I like because of cyberspace bullies; it's not as bad as Reddit or 4chan; and I love to align myself with people who think like me, especially politically, and make fun of our opponents -- Republicans.
But that got tested severely last (Sunday) night. While trying to sleep/figuring out how I want to spend my waking hours in the evening I went through Twitter instead of falling asleep. I was listening to the U.S Women's National Soccer Team roar back from a 3-1 deficit to Brazil by scoring three Goals in nine minutes to win, 4-3. I wanted to see the Twitter reaction to that was, and I got my euphoria over the epic comeback reflected back on me. But I also saw a lot of negativity to the game. A few tweets made fun of Goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher, who let in a really easy Brazil Goal to give the country a 1-0 lead. But a lot of the venom was directed at Head Coach Jill Ellis. I didn't know till later that the USWNT has already lost three games at home in the month of July. But any of the constructive criticism centered on her tactics. Most of the rest of the criticism (the vast majority) wanted Ellis fired. One nasty tweet said: "Jill Ellis, I dare you to open a Twitter account. I dare you." Forget the three losses this month and the close call Sunday. You know that Ellis was the HC who got the U.S. the Women's World Cup two years ago, right?
Well, there are always ungrateful bastards, so I just chalked it up to "people suck" and kept scrolling through my feed. All of a sudden I see this hashtag appear -- #NoConfederate. I realized they were talking about Confederate, the next series on HBO from the creators of Game Of Thrones, which aired an episode Sunday night right when this hashtag storm whipped up enough tweeters to trend. It is a dystopian fantasy drama, which envisions the South winning the Civil War. It takes place in the future; there still is slavery in "The South," but it is supposed to take place just before "The Third Civil War."
Intriguing. Or maybe I shouldn't say that, because there has been a firestorm over the premise. That came to a head Sunday night, where there was a lot of backlash over what critics consider a slave fantasy. Many people hated Confederate because it was mining and thus exploiting the black experience for white entertainment. Many tweets likened it to white privilege. This is the point where I need to remind people that not a single episode has even been made. I will take it on faith that the creators and showrunners are not bigots, and in fact want to illuminate the current state of America to show that, yes, there is a through line from the roots of slavery to its legalized, coded tactics since the Civil War, be it sharecropping, Jim Crow, sharecropping, redlining, police brutality or prisons for profit. This could be one of the greatest series ever about Race In America Today. But we don't know that either, because not a single episode has even been made. They haven't even written the pilot, for God's sake. And yet people think they should shut it down? And those twitterers who have the balls to step forward and say they already know the show should be shut down have some hypersensitive, even paranoid reasons that they believe this idea should be killed right now. One guy even made a thread about all the "traumas" African-Americans will be hit by when the show shows (hypothetical) depictions of slavery. He's a white guy, by the way, but no one was calling him out on whitesplaining, or appropriating the black narrative for his personal agenda.
Whatever, I thought. Those people are pussies, and reflect the worst caricatures of liberalism. But by God, my lefties topped themselves in the political correctness scale later in the night. In the wake of the health care battle which the Republicans lost last week (and I need to amend an earlier blog post), Representative Maxine Waters pushed back against efforts to end her questioning of Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. The exact phrase people on Twitter went apeshit over was, "I'm reclaiming my time!"
The hashtag #Reclaimingmytime blazed through liberal Twitter. This was when William Saletan, a writer for the website Slate, tweeted that parents should teach daughters to say no and say no forcefully. I totally agree with that. Such a sentiment is feminist, pro-woman, and empowering. And yet feminists and liberals fucking upbraided Saletan for that. They accused him of -- get this -- blaming the victim. By focusing on the actions of the woman (not teaching daughters to stand up for themselves, but the actions of the woman, which are two totally different fucking things), these stupid bitches and he-bitches think he's giving rapists a pass -- if not openly condoning rape. It really got bad, people. Tweets came in accusing Saletan of endorsing rape culture, for example. And when he commented on the backlash he got by tweeting about "Outrage Twitter," oh shit, the long knives came out. At this point I don't know what those liberals got pissed about. But they thought that after he told parents to teach their little girls to stand up for themselves, and some women thought misinterpreting what he was trying to say was standing up for themselves, they subsequently thought his tweets about them misinterpreting was him basically saying, "Oh, shut up, woman," which supposedly made him a hypocrite.
Oh, for fuck's sake -- HE'S ON YOUR SIDE, GODDAMMIT!!! He doesn't like these Republican chauvinist pigs any more than you do. And you think he doesn't "get it!" You alt-left hacks are the ones that don't get it! These are the times when I so fucking hate liberals. The conservative stereotype of lefties are people who jump to crazy conclusions about the slightest offense spoken or written. And I saw that on erupting on Twitter -- with Saletan, definitely with Confederate, and maybe even with Jill Ellis and the USWNT. It got so fucking bad I Muted several people I Followed and with who, when it comes to Trump and Republicans, I'd be in lockstep. I now think I should Block them altogether.
You know, Twitter isn't fun right now. I want to see other people echo my thoughts and feelings. But when they go too far and start screaming at Head Coaches or ideas for shows or great (liberal) advice about empowering females, I see people I wanted to trust turn on me. And I hate that. If this is what Twitter now is, pitched battles between entrenched extremists who make up their own code words like "virtue signaling," "based" and "normative," why in the hell would I ever want to be on there again?
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