About

"In the Middle of Nowhere Expelling " refers to a tweet by Harper's columnist Thomas Chatterton Williams. In the tweet, he relays a story about "expelling" a person from his house because they insulted New York Times opinion writer Bari Weiss. Many parodied the tweet online as a phrasal template, replacing elements of the tweet with various other absurd situations.

Origin

On July 13th, 2020, Williams tweeted, ^[1] "I'm in the middle of nowhere in France and I literally ended up expelling from my house an American friend of a friend staying over who, out of nowhere, started ranting against Bari Weiss. I asked him to simply substantiate the ridiculous claims he was repeating and he couldn't."

He continued in a thread:

Bari is my friend. People can disagree with her positions, and she'd be the first to encourage that, but what is so incredible is how many don't even know what they are talking about. And can't even name a single thing she's written that was what got them to hold their opinion.

This nonsense is seeping into real life. People just hear that some people are good or bad and are not thinking or reading for themselves.

I think a lot of people are misinterpreting this tweet (on purpose). I invited him repeatedly to expound in good faith. He couldn't, and he ended up self-expelling with my encouragement.

Spread

Following the post, people began mocking the post on Twitter. Journalist Luke O'Neil tweeted,^[2] "I'm in the middle of nowhere in France and I literally ended up expelling from my house an American friend of a friend staying over who, out of nowhere, started ranting against Bari Weiss,' is an absolutely perfect opening line for a novel. Up there with the classics" (shown below, left).

Others used the tweet as a phrasal template. For example, editor Hanif Abdurraqib tweeted,^[3]
I'm in the middle of nowhere in central ohio and I literally ended up expelling from my house an American friend of a friend staying over who, out of nowhere, started ranting against the 2007 Britney Spears album Blackout. I asked him to simply substantiate the ridicule." The tweet received more than 590 likes in less than 24 hours (shown below, center). Throughout the day, others shared variations, such as Twitterp^[4] user @kickinson, who shared a version based on the film The Talented Mr. Ripely (shown below, right).

Chatterton Williams later deleted the tweet. He wrote,^[5] "I didn't want to delete it, but my wife made me delete it. Twitter is a toxin, that's the moral of the story." The tweet received more than 260 likes and 210 retweets in less than 24 hours (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Not available.

External References