I was targeted for harassment on Twitter and all I got was bored
A dispatch from the dregs of social media
So this past summer, after the fiftieth time I saw the sponsored post on Twitter1 from Gavin Newsom flogging his amendment to allow some regulation of gun ownership, I quote tweeted it with a post where I said something along the lines of, “fuck this shit, just repeal the second amendment. It’s obsolete, written at a time before we had professional law enforcement or a standing military.”2
I went to sleep and woke up to discover that a flock of gun nuts had seen my post and decided that they felt a sacred duty to protect their hobby against a rant from (as many of them eagerly pointed out) some random guy on Twitter with 100-something followers.3
Since this is ostensibly sharing interesting things, the interesting thing in this instance was just how boring the attacks were. They largely consisted of anti-gay slurs, suggestions that my wife was unfaithful (at some point in the last decade or so, right wingers discovered the word “cuckold” and they’ve taken to it like a five-year-old who overhears his father saying “fuck” and that becomes his new favorite word) and threats of violence.4 A couple people said that the U.S. has always had law enforcement, it was the “well-regulated militia” of the second amendment, helpfully making my point about the second amendment being obsolete.
Mostly, it was just tedious, blocking all the gun nuts so terrified that their hobby might be subject to regulation that they felt the need to join in an online mob. I have a link to my website in my Twitter bio and on the website, on the contact page, my email address is there for anyone to see. A couple people posted anonymous threats through comments on posts (which has first-time posters were subject to moderation and easily deleted), and one person tried to sign me up for the mailing list for one of the gun manufacturers, but not a single person sent an email because, of course, that would lift their veil of anonymity which they needed to so courageously harass me.5
In any event, I eventually got an invite to Bluesky which is the new online writer bar and I rarely spend much time on Twitter these days.
Recent publications
Since it’s been a while, there are actually a whole pile of new publications. The full list of what I’ve published is here, but the most recent publications are three of my Chicago Sonnets at Belt Magazine and a short short story at Panoply.
Recommendation
Despite having a dismal user interface, Apple TV+6 does have some pretty good programming. I’m currently watching Hijack starring Idris Elba and it’s amazing. Elba just has amazing charisma.
Back when the only thing anybody knew Elba from was The Wire, he was interviewed on Fresh Air and I was surprised to hear him speaking in his normal English accent. I made a comment about his “posh British accent” to an English acquaintance and she said that his accent wasn’t posh. I responded, “to be honest, I can’t tell posh from prole: it all sounds like Monty Python to me.”
Be well, and with luck, it won’t be over a year before the next email.
Musk’s rebrand has to be in the top three idiot rebrands, next to the decision to change HBOMax to Max and some idiocy that falls in a distant third place.
Should you feel inclined to argue against this, may I suggest that you just don’t.
I make a point of ignoring these sorts of things. I’ve turned off the settings that alert me when I gain or lose subscribers here, but I think I’m somewhere in the low two digits or maybe high single digits for my substack. As my high school math team chanted when we came in last place at a math competition, “It just doesn’t matter.”
I would criticize Musk-era Twitter for failing to treat threats like this seriously, but Twitter apparently has always tended to be generous about the level of violent speech they tolerate. Still, it seems pretty egregious that sending me a message that they’re going to ghost print a gun with my name on it is apparently acceptable behavior.
Which kind of tells me that the old practice of putting up a contact form rather than just publishing an email address actually invites more abusive contact, not less.
I’m currently enjoying six months free courtesy of T-Mobile. I’m not sure I’ll renew when the six months are up, but maybe when I upgrade my iPad or iPhone, I’ll get another free batch of Apple TV+.