The Worst Tweets of the Week: January 7-11, 2019

Hot Takes are the lifeblood of Twitter. They help us process the whirlwind of news and trends by uniting us against a person with an absolutely batshit thought they decided would be a good idea to type and put out there in the world. Of course, gathering around to dunk on a bad tweet is as time-honored a tradition for Twitter as letting Florida decide the fate of the nation is for Americans, but this past week saw some particularly spicy takes regarding the early year's trending topics, leading to some strong early contenders for Worst Tweet of 2019. Let's take a look at them, shall we?

Sandra Newman's AOC and Jeff Bezos Fanfiction

Politics and sex are two tastes that almost never go well together, but that hasn't stopped a recent deluge of terrible political fan fiction. Who could forget Leah McElrath's infamous Beto sex tweet, which imagined the "leg-cramping" sexual prowess of congressman Beto O'Rourke? Or the multiple vaguely horny attempts to smear congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? On January 9th, author Sandra Newman made her contribution to the genre by imagining Alive Girl fetishist Jeff Bezos in a star-crossed romance with the rising Democratic Socialist.

This tweet is awful for several reasons. First, Newman asks her audience to imagine the 54-year old billionaire Goomba seducing the 28-year old congresswoman, which, yeuch. Second, we have to imagine Ocasio-Cortez as a Beauty and the Beast-type heroine who at first sees Bezos as a monster but somehow melts his icy exterior, causing him to reform his business practices. Frankly, this is well-tread territory, and again, these are real people, not Disney characters. Finally, the climax of the story finds the unlikely pair storming the White House as the first President and Vice President husband-and-wife duo in the history of the United States. There are more believable fan fictions on Archive of Our Own. It's the kind of tweet that makes you bang your head on your desk and wait for the sweet release of death. Please, writers of Twitter, stop writing bad political fan fiction on the timeline. I beg you.

Badness Rating: 8/10
Is the tweet still up?: No

Robin James' Nuclear Marie Kondo Take

Challenging oppressive power structures when they're reproduced in media can be a good and valuable thing. Cultural criticism has helped pave the way for artistic representation of marginalized voices, making for original and important media that can be enjoyed by people of all races, creeds, and sexualities. It can, however, be overdone. While pointing out old, harmful tropes a la "gays are pedophiles" and "the black character always dies first" is useful for helping change the media landscape, arguing that a catchphrase coined by a Japanese woman designed to help you clean your house somehow reinforces the patriarchy is, in a phrase, "not it, chief."

For context, in Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, the low-stakes house-cleaning Netflix show that's quickly become a global sensation, author and cleanliness guru Marie Kondo advises people to consider every item in their house and ask themselves if it "sparks joy." If it does not, then it should be thrown out. In the above tweet, philosophy and gender studies professor Robin James argues that the "spark joy" mantra is a coded way the patriarchy asks women to handle the emotions of men. I have sat here for five minutes trying to rephrase that argument to make it clearer but I have had no such luck. I can't make sense of it. After having watched Tidying Up, the closest thing to the reproduction of patriarchal structures I can find is that the wives are generally asked to tidy up the kitchen and the men the garage. But James doesn't seem to be criticizing that aspect of the show, just the phrase "Does it spark joy?" Perhaps Twitter is not the best medium to unpack her argument, because in 280 characters, it reads like a potpourri of academic buzzwords thrown at a trending topic with no rhyme or reason. Which of course, makes it both a nuclear hot take and a god-awful tweet.

Badness Rating: 6.5/10
Is the tweet still up?: Yes

Baseball Crank's Wall Tweet

Discourse about Donald Trump's Wall has reached an exhausting fever pitch as the President continues to refuse to reopen the government until he gets funding for it, but no take has been as Galaxy Brain batshit as the Baseball Crank's. Conservative writer Dan McLaughlin, aka Baseball Crank, has long been a bad tweeter, but his defense of the wall may constitute his greatest work yet.

This is absolutely pristine. Every time I read it, I'm in awe of the sheer terribleness of this take. Let's break it down: McLaughlin here is responding to California Congressman Eric Swalwell, who tweeted the argument that building a wall along the Mexico-U.S. border is un-American, citing America's influence in having the Berlin Wall torn down. With flawless logic, McLaughlin argues that if Swalwell hates walls so much, he must also hate churches and hospitals, for they too have walls. I love it. The smarmy, "checkmate Libs" subtext behind this asinine point is cocaine for Discourse lovers. Without irony, Crank plays the character parodied in The Nib's We should improve society somewhat comic and somehow makes him even dumber. Without a doubt, this is an early contender for the worst tweet of 2019. It will take a lot to top, "You seem to hate walls, yet you are surrounded by four of them! Very interesting…" Congratulations Baseball Crank, you have the worst tweet of the week!

Badness Rating: 10/10
Is the tweet still up?: Yes