Last night was a callback to the Twitter of old, as the RFK Jr. Olivia Nuzzi cheating scandal sent the site into a frenzy of jokes about the 31-year-old reporter entering an "emotional and digital" relationship with the 70-year-old third-party presidential candidate, whose campaign she covered for New York Magazine late last year.
It's exactly the kind of gossip Twitter feels like it was made for, and, as journalist Matt Pearce put it, it brought old "media Twitter" posters out of retirement for "one last job."
Just like dunking fiestas of old Twitter, one user had to stand up to have a contrarian take on everyone else's good time, spawning an offshoot discourse to rival the heights of the original discourse.
Last night, that soul was journalist Nomiki Konst, who implied that Kennedy had preyed on Nuzzi due to the 39-year gap in their ages.
The proverbial bomb of "age gap" discourse, ever a contentious topic on social media as users continuously hash out whether two consenting adults can enter an affair with one another if they're of different generations, entered the RFK Jr. Olivia Nuzzi scandal, and many Twitter users were seemingly thrilled to dunk on Konst's take.
An important bit of context here: Nuzzi is engaged to Politico reporter Ryan Lizza, who is 50 and was himself the subject of a sexual misconduct investigation that got him fired from The New Yorker in 2017.
Few were willing to buy the idea that Nuzzi, who again is 31 and engaged to a significantly older man, was somehow groomed by Kennedy into whatever improper relationship they reportedly had.
Konst's tweet, though controversial, was like medicine for Twitter posters who missed when the site regularly featured wild hot takes that would inspire the site into memeing, the days when such takes as "'Himbo' is Ablelist" and "Fictional characters can't consent" appeared with regularity.
Several users expressed how overjoyed they were to see Konst's take (and not for its content).
Finally, placing a cherry on this delicious hot take sundae — Konst blamed the pushback she received on Russian bots.
Top Comment
Geigh Science
Sep 20, 2024 at 06:48PM EDT