by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
In a few weeks I will have been on Twitter for ten years, a full decade. By the time that dubious anniversary rolls around I will have "tweeted" thirty thousand times, with roughly two-thirds of those being just simple "retweets" where I clicked on the mouse and helped to spread someone else's original snark, but probably a full third of my tweets have been my own original snark. So far I have been able to insult the rich and famous without getting myself placed in Twitter Jail (having my account suspended) or barred from the social medium. The fact that my little efforts go unnoticed by the powers-that-be at Twitter probably speaks more to the banality of my jibes than it does to my cleverness in wording insults so that they slide under the radar of the Twitter Cops.
Twitter is a great place for average people to vent their spleens on the political and economic tyrants who work so tirelessly to insure that the little people remain small and insignificant in the world's social order. If Donald Trump makes me mad, as he does most of my waking hours, I can craft a clever barb and send it out over Twitter, a barb that shows the world just how clever and outraged I am - and I can address it specifically to Trump and have the satisfaction of knowing that my well-polished insult has landed directly in his Twitter feed. And I can do all of that without going through the abject humiliation of directly "following" Donald Trump on Twitter.
(My Dad told me years ago - probably when Eisenhower was in office - that actors were not allowed to even mention the president in movies. That was on the tail-end of the McCarthy era, so things were different then, but they certainly have changed since. Now American presidents routinely serve as plot devices in movies, and a hillbilly nobody can say almost whatever he pleases about our current president on Twitter and feel as though he has somehow become the man's equal.
Donald Trump is the equivalent of low-hanging fruit on Twitter, a large, rotten apple that is dangling just inches above the ground - and begs to be kicked every time someone walks by. He is an easy, easy target. And Trump is surrounded by many other rotten apples that also make for tempting and easy kicking - and I, for one, find it hard to resist taking an occasional potshot with the toe of my tennie as I stroll through the fruit-laden trees of the Twitter orchard.
Unfortunately, I am burdened with the notion that I am clever, but Twitter usually relieves me of that misconception in short order. Often I will spend ten minutes or so creating and then polishing what I consider to be a highly relevant observation or an extremely clever put-down, only to find that after my sparkling tweet has been posted for an hour or two that is has garnered absolutely no responses - "comments," "likes," "retweets," And when some of my words do manage to gain some small amount of attention it is usually just a handful of people who click on the little red heart to let me know that they "liked" what I had to say. It is a rare, rare event when I score double digits on any measure - and when that does happen it is almost always in conjunction with a tweet that I just banged out with little or no forethought.
That happened last night when I did a quick response to a tweet that someone posted about White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. They noted that she is being paid $175,000 per annum and hasn't held a press briefing in forty-some days. Just what, the tweeter inquired, was she being paid for? I agreed and threw in a response which noted that in addition to the $175,000 each year, she was also receiving the services of a government-funded make-up consultant.
(Donald Trump, who doesn't give a rip doubt women's rights in the workplace, does want his ladies looking nice - and his administration recently hired a make-up consultant to doll-up Sarah Sanders and presidential advisor Kellyanne Conway - seriously.)
My reply to the tweet about Sarah's unearned salary was off-the-cuff and snarky, but it resonated better than any of my insults of recent memory. The hits started coming in, and by this morning it had received 6 comments (all humorous), 33 likes, and 19 retweets.
That response proved two things: 1. Every dog - even Pa Rock - will eventually have his day, and 2. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is definitely low-hanging fruit! And it may also be an indication that Americans would like to have some tangible returns for the money that they pay out in salaries and benefits to government employees.
Tweet on, America. Your work may not get noticed, but at least it's therapeutic!
Citizen Journalist
In a few weeks I will have been on Twitter for ten years, a full decade. By the time that dubious anniversary rolls around I will have "tweeted" thirty thousand times, with roughly two-thirds of those being just simple "retweets" where I clicked on the mouse and helped to spread someone else's original snark, but probably a full third of my tweets have been my own original snark. So far I have been able to insult the rich and famous without getting myself placed in Twitter Jail (having my account suspended) or barred from the social medium. The fact that my little efforts go unnoticed by the powers-that-be at Twitter probably speaks more to the banality of my jibes than it does to my cleverness in wording insults so that they slide under the radar of the Twitter Cops.
Twitter is a great place for average people to vent their spleens on the political and economic tyrants who work so tirelessly to insure that the little people remain small and insignificant in the world's social order. If Donald Trump makes me mad, as he does most of my waking hours, I can craft a clever barb and send it out over Twitter, a barb that shows the world just how clever and outraged I am - and I can address it specifically to Trump and have the satisfaction of knowing that my well-polished insult has landed directly in his Twitter feed. And I can do all of that without going through the abject humiliation of directly "following" Donald Trump on Twitter.
(My Dad told me years ago - probably when Eisenhower was in office - that actors were not allowed to even mention the president in movies. That was on the tail-end of the McCarthy era, so things were different then, but they certainly have changed since. Now American presidents routinely serve as plot devices in movies, and a hillbilly nobody can say almost whatever he pleases about our current president on Twitter and feel as though he has somehow become the man's equal.
Donald Trump is the equivalent of low-hanging fruit on Twitter, a large, rotten apple that is dangling just inches above the ground - and begs to be kicked every time someone walks by. He is an easy, easy target. And Trump is surrounded by many other rotten apples that also make for tempting and easy kicking - and I, for one, find it hard to resist taking an occasional potshot with the toe of my tennie as I stroll through the fruit-laden trees of the Twitter orchard.
Unfortunately, I am burdened with the notion that I am clever, but Twitter usually relieves me of that misconception in short order. Often I will spend ten minutes or so creating and then polishing what I consider to be a highly relevant observation or an extremely clever put-down, only to find that after my sparkling tweet has been posted for an hour or two that is has garnered absolutely no responses - "comments," "likes," "retweets," And when some of my words do manage to gain some small amount of attention it is usually just a handful of people who click on the little red heart to let me know that they "liked" what I had to say. It is a rare, rare event when I score double digits on any measure - and when that does happen it is almost always in conjunction with a tweet that I just banged out with little or no forethought.
That happened last night when I did a quick response to a tweet that someone posted about White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. They noted that she is being paid $175,000 per annum and hasn't held a press briefing in forty-some days. Just what, the tweeter inquired, was she being paid for? I agreed and threw in a response which noted that in addition to the $175,000 each year, she was also receiving the services of a government-funded make-up consultant.
(Donald Trump, who doesn't give a rip doubt women's rights in the workplace, does want his ladies looking nice - and his administration recently hired a make-up consultant to doll-up Sarah Sanders and presidential advisor Kellyanne Conway - seriously.)
My reply to the tweet about Sarah's unearned salary was off-the-cuff and snarky, but it resonated better than any of my insults of recent memory. The hits started coming in, and by this morning it had received 6 comments (all humorous), 33 likes, and 19 retweets.
That response proved two things: 1. Every dog - even Pa Rock - will eventually have his day, and 2. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is definitely low-hanging fruit! And it may also be an indication that Americans would like to have some tangible returns for the money that they pay out in salaries and benefits to government employees.
Tweet on, America. Your work may not get noticed, but at least it's therapeutic!
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