Know Your References, Twitter

I think it is hilarious that this tweet I sent on Aug. 7 (a retweet-response to a “fuck you” Rosie O’Donnell had sent to NBC’s Willie Geist, whom someone else was calling out for clutching his pearls after Texan Congressman Joaquin Castro reminded everyone, in perfectly constitutional and constitutionally protected fashion, that, yeah, you know that there are certain people who are still supporting Donald Trump and his regime and these are their names), of all 22.7K+ tweets that I’ve sent and owned, as Lisa Rinna would put it, since I joined Twitter in the fall of 2009, is the one to have recently gotten me suspended from the social media platform.

Do not even get me started on the glibness of the communications Twitter has sent me in regards to this ludricrous situation, all of ’em signed “Thanks, Twitter,” like Twitter is Richard Wright or som’in’.

First of all, it took whomever complained about my tweet five days to get offended. Twitter first notified me of my suspension and locked me out from the platform, for violating their “rules against hateful conduct,” sometime during the wee morning hours of Aug. 12. Curiosity then got the best of me and, even though I wasn’t gonna, I appealed the company’s decision during the course of the morning. By end of business, I received notice that my First Amendment-invoking appeal (and refutal of their assertions) had been denied, and that I will remain suspended, lest I delete my controversial (?) tweet, “Thanks, Twitter.”

It seems they think I was promoting violence against, threatening, or harassing other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease – which is pile bullshit, given who is president and how Twitter enables his constant, daily promotion of violence against, threats, or harassment against other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease.

GTS. You will find an example for it all.

What was more egregious, I wonder: That I called Geist a “phony white bitch”? Jeez, can it really be? I mean, that expression has been in the culture for a while, at least since Sandra Bernhard bandied about the bon mot during her 1998 cult-classic one-woman hit show, I’m Still Here… Damn It! As Billy Porter, Bernhard’s Emmy-nominated co-star on FX’s Pose, would say, know your references, Twitter.

Oh, shucks. Did Geist himself take umbrage that I questioned his integrity and his objectivity?

Ahem…I’m allowed to do that, no? Still? We are still allowed to do that, however inelegantly given the space constraint imposed by Twitter.

Look, whatever it was, it cannot be that I called Trump an orange hemorrhoid, can it? Done that before, and no one said a thing. Plus, plenty of other people have called him worse (and better). IRL. And on Twitter and all over social media. Around the world. To his face and, even, on camera. For roasting purposes and for serious.

Thanks, Twitter, but you can go right ahead and fuck the right off.

Nothing is that important that it must be tweeted, and there is a certain kind of peace that has come from not finding out about the ugly, racist, sexist, violent ways of the world from you.

Bye, bitch.