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the types of tweets

a guide

Brian Feldman
Mar 30, 2021
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the types of tweets
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One could say that, if they wanted. This past week, Lil Nas X, the musician, released “Montero (Call Me By Your Name),” in which he hangs out with the devil and then kills the devil to become the devil himself. He’s selling some satanic, modded Nikes to go along with it. It’s classic Satanic Panic bait and everyone you thought would be dumb enough to fall for it fell for it.

Lil Nas X is “good at Twitter.” Many people say this and it’s true. He’s good at posting. In fact, one might say his first hit single’s success is partially attributable to an online audience he built by posting a lot before he’d even recorded a single lyric. Others might also say he’s “extremely online,” a descriptor that I think unhelpfully exoticizes standard, mainstream behavior and is roughly as helpful as saying a high school student is “extremely in class” or a dolphin is “extremely underwater.”

There are many different ways to be good at posting. For instance, the former president was good at posting because he was unpredictable and so blunt and unsubtle that it kinda knocked you off-balance. I think a lot of what think of as “good at Twitter” is merely about subverting expectations to get attention. A president who sends unhinged tweets at 5 a.m., musicians who say stuff that appears to not be PR handler-approved, a fast-food brand tweeting about clinical depression and self-care. Stunts, in other words.

What make Lil Nas X different, in my view, is that he’s a lot more versatile, and there’s a variety to his approach. One that can be inherently understood as someone adapting on the fly and deploying different strategies as needed. It’s not a brute force approach, or a stubborn one. It’s very canny.

Some might be tempted to call what follows a “taxonomy” or a “glossary” or whatever; it’s just a list.

intentional lameness

One of the best ways to let someone online know that you are not interested in talking to them is to say the lamest possible comeback. Like, these are so lazy and bad that they instantly convey not defensiveness, or anger, but genuine boredom. This is literally posting the first thing that pops into your head.

Twitter avatar for @LilNasXnope 🏹 @LilNasX
u can’t last 30 seconds in bed with your wife https://t.co/6mFCJlceWb

Nick Adams @NickAdamsinUSA

Clowns like @LilNasX & @iamcardib couldn’t last 30 seconds on a debate stage with the likes of @RealCandaceO!

March 29th 2021

16,691 Retweets220,661 Likes
Twitter avatar for @LilNasXnope 🏹 @LilNasX
yep and i might fuck yours https://t.co/PJ9nil77IJ

Kaitlin Bennett @KaitMarieox

Do you still see your dad? https://t.co/yZhocQvvE5

March 29th 2021

58,187 Retweets483,148 Likes

reposting what people think are Ws but are actually Ls

These posts are like if someone saying that they are “not mad, and in fact, laughing” was actually tellign the truth. You happily post people overreacting, to show how cool and chill you are.

Twitter avatar for @LilNasXnope 🏹 @LilNasX
LETS FUCKIN GOOOO! WE MADE FOX NEWS! https://t.co/pkEpbcMPqy

Acyn @Acyn

More Fox News coverage of Lil Nas X: ...Nas might find himself sliding down that pole for real https://t.co/PustFA5hv3

March 30th 2021

9,279 Retweets159,086 Likes
Twitter avatar for @LilNasXnope 🏹 @LilNasX
Image

March 29th 2021

4,777 Retweets79,039 Likes
Twitter avatar for @LilNasXnope 🏹 @LilNasX
i’m sampling this https://t.co/H2mlZs9YkW

Right Wing Watch @RightWingWatch

Right-wing pastor Greg Locke is not a fan of Lil Nas X (apologies for the quality of the video - the livestream of Locke's service today was glitchy.) https://t.co/CJ3DSUuqth

March 28th 2021

20,963 Retweets318,239 Likes

the grand scheme of things

This is a close relative of whataboutism that people deploy online to deflect controversy. Whataboutism is usually about hypocrisy, but ‘the grand scheme of things’ is more about just blocking someone’s view with something nobody in their right mind would try to diminish. “Oh, you think this is bad? Is is worse than genocide?”

Twitter avatar for @LilNasXnope 🏹 @LilNasX
y’all saying a gay nigga twerking on a cgi satan is the end of times like slavery and the holocaust didn’t happen

March 27th 2021

39,791 Retweets325,498 Likes
Twitter avatar for @LilNasXnope 🏹 @LilNasX
we are in a pandemic and y’all are going on day 5 of being mad at a gay nigga who don’t do none but tweet all day

March 29th 2021

17,438 Retweets268,504 Likes

you, a serious person, are getting mad at me, a clown

Simple self-deprecation, with the added flair of using your attackers own sense of self-importance against them. If you are so important, why do you care about me? This is kinda like suicide bombing — taking yourself down to expose how weird it is that people consider you an enemy at all.

Twitter avatar for @LilNasXnope 🏹 @LilNasX
ur a whole governor and u on here tweeting about some damn shoes. do ur job!

Governor Kristi Noem @govkristinoem

Our kids are being told that this kind of product is, not only okay, it's "exclusive." But do you know what's more exclusive? Their God-given eternal soul. We are in a fight for the soul of our nation. We need to fight hard. And we need to fight smart. We have to win. https://t.co/m1k1YWFpuo

March 28th 2021

18,637 Retweets198,090 Likes
Twitter avatar for @LilNasXnope 🏹 @LilNasX
y’all have spent 5 days discussing a nigga who wore this in public
Image

March 30th 2021

14,382 Retweets226,889 Likes

by your logic

As a general rule, I think doing “by your logic” traps are corny, but the rules are different when you are a national celebrity with a wide variety of followers. Some people, those who do not follow online communication trends closely, appreciate a gotcha. Sometimes you have to toss them a few.

Twitter avatar for @LilNasXnope 🏹 @LilNasX
the only mfer i mocked was the devil. i thought y’all hated that nigga. https://t.co/NCgjYkicNR

March 30th 2021

8,595 Retweets115,292 Likes
Twitter avatar for @LilNasXnope 🏹 @LilNasX
i thought y’all didn’t like political correctness. what happened? 😫😢

March 29th 2021

9,954 Retweets160,638 Likes

the fakeout

I like this one a lot because it’s obviously not a real apology, but he went through the effort of uploding it to YouTube, rather than putting it on Twitter natively, and he made a generic “I’m sorry” thumbnails for it. It’s that kind of attention to detail that attracts web-literate followers and also ropes dopes.

Twitter avatar for @LilNasXnope 🏹 @LilNasX
Lil Nas X Apologizes for Satan Shoe
youtu.be/ESf8Un3g9zM
Image

March 28th 2021

12,964 Retweets167,920 Likes

wholesome content

It’s easy but it works!

Twitter avatar for @LilNasXnope 🏹 @LilNasX
bro my fucking 4th grade teacher saw the video oh my god i’m gonna cry
Image
Image
Image

March 27th 2021

11,637 Retweets361,026 Likes

just posting solid jokes and obvious trolling

Again, it’s easy but it gets the job done.

Twitter avatar for @LilNasXnope 🏹 @LilNasX
omg if you roll down your window at chic fil a playing call me by your name they give u a free sandwich and a lemonade

March 29th 2021

10,275 Retweets169,659 Likes

fake baby

I’ll be honest: I did not expect Lil Nas X to pull out a “woke toddler” tweet. That’s a conversational tactic borne out of Resistance Twitter and other heavily unironic sectors of the site, so to see it deployed at this scale is genuinely impressive. The quick explanation is a parent makes up their small child saying something far above their age level in order to prove some sort of point. You gotta hand it to him here.

Twitter avatar for @LilNasXnope 🏹 @LilNasX
showed my 3 month old niece the call me by your name video and she said “uncle that was quite the stupendous visual, why in heavens would any individual be enraged over such a sensational showpiece” i’m gonna go cry yall😢😢

March 26th 2021

9,473 Retweets142,211 Likes

Elsewhere…

  • I cannot stress how much “Let’s see paul allen’s ‘let’s see paul allen’s’ meme” bore me, so click at your own risk

  • briefly looked into the girl who allegedly sent Frozen RP to a 200-person GroupMe, but the lines excerpted are from the actual movie. Not sure why they sent it regardless but at least it’s not fanfic

  • squarespace deleted

  • here’s me

  • the Suez Canal ship’s crates being in the shape of Loss.jpeg and an Among Us crewmate is obviously fake but, nonetheless:

Twitter avatar for @ItsMobbbMob @ItsMobbb
we’re living in a simulation.
Image
Image
Image

March 29th 2021

7,980 Retweets80,113 Likes

Thank you for reading BNet. Remember the stuck boat?
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