Serenity Now
Why I stopped calling you names on Twitter
IF you’ve interacted with me on social media lately, you probably noticed something: I haven’t called you a clown since August. You’re welcome. About four months ago, I did the unthinkable: I stopped namecalling on Twitter. While I was never a very combative person, on Twitter or in real life, I have always enjoyed the clapback. I’m a mild-mannered mother of three — but if crossed I, as my husband calls it, “go Brooklyn.” When someone does something stupid, I am quick to point it out, and not in the gentlest of terms.
A shortlist of people I had called a “clown,” my favorite of all the insults, on Twitter, includes Michael Bloomberg, Tupac Shakur, Barack Obama, Ron Reagan Jr., Al Sharpton and, more times than anyone else, Donald Trump. Many random Twitter users have been on the receiving end of my calling them a “dummy” or an “idiot.”
I’m not alone, either as a New Yorker or social-media user, and for the last few years that was made most evident by the man who is now our president.
A few months before the 2016 election, Scott Adams, creator of the comic strip Dilbert and vocal Trump supporter, wrote on his blog that when Trump says “inappropriate and violent-sounding things,” most people are offended and scared. “The exception is people who grew up in New York. We see it as ‘talking.’ ”
Clyde Haberman echoed this thought in The New York Times last July, noting, “the New Yorkness of the president’s behavior is striking. New Yorkers have a history of rewarding politicians who approach governance much the way Don Rickles constructed his comedy routine: as rule by insult.”
There’s truth to that. New Yorkers do appreciate a good diss. But as the election ran its course, I found Trump’s insults juvenile and cruel more than funny and pointed. When he became president, many people, myself included, hoped he would rise to the challenge of the office, get off Twitter and watch his mouth. He didn’t.
But just as concerning, Trump’s critics seemed to take on his personality traits.
Trump-hating Rep. Ted Lieu called White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders “dumb as a rock” and gave the attorney general the Trump-ish nickname “Lyin’ Jeff Sessions.”
Elizabeth Warren called the president “the large orange elephant” and “a small, insecure money-grubber.” And that’s in just one speech!
Both Warren and Lieu have also called Trump a “bully.” I suppose bully is in the eye of the beholder.
These hypocrites are also ignoring an adage that should desperately be heeded in this day and age: “Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.”
You might think Trump’s behavior is unpresidential and you’re just fighting fire with fire, but to onlookers it isn’t clear — and anyway, it doesn’t matter, because “he started it” surely isn’t an excuse we should be letting adults, let alone members of Congress, get away with.
Which means we must hold ourselves to the same standard. So I took a hard look at my own words, too. I may not be president, but I was conducting myself in a manner that would con- fuse onlookers as to who was the fool. When I found myself criticizing the president for his behavior, while engaging in that same behavior, it was time to reassess.
My rampant name-calling predates Trump by many years; I don’t blame him for it. But I saw myself and others using him to give ourselves a pass and needed to stop it. So I stopped. Stopped calling people “dumbass,” “idiot,” “moron,” “buffoon” or my beloved “clown.”
I’ve been tested many times since August, and it’s been a battle not to whip out my greatest insults at foes. When someone seemingly purposely misunderstands me or misrepresents what I’m saying, I don’t tweet back that they’re an idiot. If someone attacks me personally, I don’t disparage their mother.
If I feel like someone on Twitter is trying to get a rise out of me, I mute them and don’t look back.
I’m still Brooklyn, just maybe on the inside. Like Greenpoint.
I’ve enjoyed the put-down, and it’s been a difficult to curb it. There are so many dumb people, and I really want to let them know! I do that in other ways now, without name-calling. The biggest change of all: Sometimes I just let someone be wrong on the Internet and leave it at that.