Picayune Extra: Plagiarism scandal rocks Tweet Madness
But we're down to the Elite 8
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We are down to the Elite 8 in Tweet Madness, the 64-quip bracket tournament I’ve designed to allow readers to choose the best tweet of the 2021-22 season. Each entry was a winner of the weekly poll, posted Thursday’s in the main edition of the Picayune Sentinel.
Here are the four matchups I’m asking you to vote on.
Just helped my neighbor bury a rolled up carpet in the woods. Her boyfriend would have helped, but he was out of town. — (various sources)
v.
The party of open carry wants you to know your mask is making them uncomfortable — @longwall26
When you don’t want to teach kids about slavery but want to preserve confederate monuments, that’s called hypocritical race theory– @OhNoSheTwitnt
v.
Do you remember, before the internet, it was thought that the cause of collective stupidity was the lack of access to information? Well, it wasn’t that. — @JebTheJarhead
Me: What’s wrong?
Wife: you’re not supposed to say you have a favorite child.
Me: Everyone does, secretly.
Wife: Well it should at least be one of ours –@thedad
v.
Well well well. If it isn’t those eight pounds I lost last spring. And I see you brought two friends. — @UnFitz
What haunts me is that I am just not smart enough for so many people to be this much stupider than I am. — @KateHarding
v.
It’s true that you can’t fix stupid, but COVID is definitely giving it the old college try. — @OhNoSheTwitnt
Go here to register your choices.
You’ll note that the “carpet in the woods” tweet is now attributed to “various sources.” This happened after I discovered it was far from original with @mariana057, who had claimed credit for it and even had the brass to retweet my announcement that she’d made it to the next round of the tournament.
Note that she freely admits in her bio to stealing jokes, which ought to be considered a Twitter felony, and then asks her followers for donations!
I usually don’t have time to filter out copycats and thieves among Tweet of the Week nominees and so rely on the Twitter community to spot offenders and call them to my attention. Twitter’s search function isn’t good about sorting results by date and even when I find the first instance of a joke on Twitter I sometimes find it originated elsewhere online or even in a published book, so I often can’t confidently offer a re-attribution.
Know that I value originality and strongly believe in giving credit where it’s due. Know also that sometimes two or more of the more than 300 million regular Twitter users will independently come up with strikingly similar amusing observations and I’m not going to worry too much about that.
I will post the Final Four on Thursday morning and then the championship matchup will go online Monday morning, the day of the NCAA men’s basketball championship in which I’m guessing Kansas will beat Duke.
And speaking of powerhouses, we could be heading for a @OhNoSheTwitnt v. @OhNoSheTwitnt final.
Talkin’ smack
I probably read 100 takes — from social media entries to earnest commentaries — on the altercation between Will Smith and Chris Rock during Sunday night’s Academy Awards telecast, and I’m interested in yours in the comment section.
Mine is conventional — Rock crossed a line when he made a joke about the medical condition that Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith is dealing with, but it was ugly, uncalled for and weird for Smith to slap Rock. Why not a punch, the blow of choice of the truly enraged? And why did Rock keep his hands down at his sides as an angry man was striding toward him?
It all made me think of this:
Notes and comments from readers —lightly edited —- along with my responses
Some of these messages are in reference to items in last Thursday’s Picayune Sentinel.
Jean S. C. — I object to your suggestion that, instead of $50 in free gas, Willie Wilson should have given away $50 prepaid credit cards in “the most disadvantaged neighborhoods.” That amounts to a sort of redlining by generalization. There are any number of people in neighborhoods that are not “the most disadvantaged” who are more in need of that sort of giveaway than people the “most disadvantaged neighborhoods.”
Obviously a somewhat random distribution of charitable resources will give aid to some people who may not be in the most dire need. But I suspect a door-to-door giveaway of gift cards along our poorest streets would better benefit those in financial distress than a giveaway targeted to those who own cars and who have the free time to wait in a long line to get a handout.
Any giveaway that’s not scrupulously means-tested will not be perfectly efficient, but Wilson’s method here seemed notably and obviously inefficient.
Block Club Chicago asked Wilson if plans to run for mayor next year:
“I’m going to do whatever it takes to do good,” Wilson said … “If I do run, I’ll make my decision in the next two weeks. A lot of people asked me to run for mayor of the city of Chicago again, and I’ve been considering it, and it’ll be the next two to three weeks we’ll make that decision.”
Phillip S. — I bought gas yesterday and it was only $45. I told my wife it wasn’t even a full Willie Wilson.
Since a $100 bill is a “Benjamin” in slang (after Benjamin Franklin, whose face is on the front) then perhaps Chicagoans can start referring to the $50 bill as a “Willie.” Let’s make it happen!
O.R. — A March 22 Tribune story makes reference to “the particularly colorful Chicago phrase ‘jagoff.’”But is “jagoff” really a Chicago term? I was born and raised here, so I have been familiar with it since my earliest memories. Is it really local, like 16 inch softball? Or does it enjoy more universal use across the nation?
Online consensus seems to be that the word — the insulting synonym for “jerk” or “idiot” — originated in Pittsburgh but is particularly common in Chicago as well. Though it sounds a bit off color — a minced version of “jackoff,” suggesting an Americanized take on the British insult “wanker” — it actually derives from the Scots-Irish word “jag” meaning “poke. ” This suggests an irritant, “which is exactly what a jagoff is,” wrote Edward McClelland in Chicago Magazine in 2019, “a thorn in your side, a person who won’t stop needling you.”
A jackoff abuses himself, while a jagoff abuses you. …Far from being a word which attempts to conceal an obscenity, it’s a word which enables users to avoid an obscenity.
D. Dale W. — Regarding proposed changes to the rules of basketball in last Tuesday’s issue, I suggest reducing the use of the possession arrow. Tie-ups should go to the defense. Only in cases when it’s not clear which team is on offense and which is on defense should referees use the possession arrow to determine which team gets the ball next. As it stands now, use of the possession arrow reduces the advantage of a team that plays particularly aggressive defense. The possession arrow assumes that both teams play with equal tenacity. Not true.
I like it. I’d go further and eliminate jump balls entirely — even the opening tip, which I’d decide with a coin flip. And I’d give every tie-up to the team that was most recently not in control of the ball — that is, the team that accomplishes the tie-up. So if Team A misses a shot and the ball bounces around loose on the floor and Team B grabs it but is quickly tied up by Team A, Team A gets the ball.
Jake H. —I can’t see a good reason we shouldn’t have pretty much every square inch of public way in urban areas covered by cameras that can be used very selectively and restrictively, according to law, to virtually "chase" and apprehend perpetrators (who have just committed, say, a shooting), investigate crimes, and prosecute criminals. Under traditional 4th Amendment jurisprudence, we don't have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" when we're out in public anyway. We live with lots of cameras already, just not nearly enough of them to more-or-less guarantee that gang shooters get caught.
Marc. M — I wish I could believe that the uses of ubiquitous surveillance cameras would be narrowly defined and constrained. The continued improvements in computing power and artificial intelligence will provide massive capability far beyond the investigation of specific violent crimes. Then what will be the logic of prohibiting vehicle tracking and sound recording in public places? And we all know how much “leaks” from government systems when it is politically useful to someone with access
This does seem like one of those situations where it's going to be difficult to impossible to stop the technology as it gets better, faster and cheaper. So we have to try to control/limit its use. I have no problem whatsoever with high def cameras on every light post being used as a tool to control and solve crime. If we can track rapists, muggers or a carjackers to their homes after the fact or keep better tabs on suspects released on electronic monitoring, I'm not going to quibble. But I find it hard to believe that the use of this technology will remain limited and that video will be quickly erased if it’s not tied to an actual crime.
Bob R. — Did you seriously suggest that public schools and departments should be named after those who contribute the most money to them? Public schools? Really?
Why not? Public universities — supported by your tax dollars among other sources of money — do it all the time. Rauner College Prep and Pritzker College Prep are both public schools in Chicago, and I think we all know why they are so named. If we can use the vanity of the rich to improve education, let’s do it!
Ya gotta see these tweets!
I often run across tweets that are too visual in nature to include in the Tweet of the Week contest (the template for the poll does not allow the use of images). Here are a few good ones I’ve come across recently:
There’s still time to vote in the conventional Tweet of the Week poll! And don’t neglect to mark your choices in the Elite 8 bracket of Tweet Madness.
Thank you for supporting the Picayune Sentinel. To help this publication grow, please consider spreading the word to friends, family, associates, neighbors and agreeable strangers.
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This gave me a lot to think about...
From Kareem Abdul-Jabbar:
When Will Smith stormed onto the Oscar stage to strike Chris Rock for making a joke about his wife’s short hair, he did a lot more damage than just to Rock’s face. With a single petulant blow, he advocated violence, diminished women, insulted the entertainment industry, and perpetuated stereotypes about the Black community.
That’s a lot to unpack. Let’s start with the facts: Rock made a reference to Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, as looking like Demi Moore in GI Jane, in which Moore had shaved her head. Jada Pinkett Smith suffers from alopecia, which causes hair loss. Ok, I can see where the Smiths might not have found that joke funny. But Hollywood awards shows are traditionally a venue where much worse things have been said about celebrities as a means of downplaying the fact that it’s basically a gathering of multimillionaires giving each other awards to boost business so they can make even more money.
The Smiths could have reacted by politely laughing along with the joke or by glowering angrily at Rock. Instead, Smith felt the need to get up in front of his industry peers and millions of people around the world, hit another man, then return to his seat to bellow: “Keep my wife's name out of your fucking mouth.” Twice.
Some have romanticized Smith’s actions as that of a loving husband defending his wife. Comedian Tiffany Haddish, who starred in the movie Girls Trip with Pinkett Smith, praised Smith’s actions: “[F]or me, it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen because it made me believe that there are still men out there that love and care about their women, their wives.”
Actually, it was the opposite. Smith’s slap was also a slap to women. If Rock had physically attacked Pinkett Smith, Smith’s intervention would have been welcome. Or if he’d remained in his seat and yelled his post-slap threat, that would have been unnecessary, but understandable. But by hitting Rock, he announced that his wife was incapable of defending herself—against words. From everything I’d seen of Pinkett Smith over the years, she’s a very capable, tough, smart woman who can single-handedly take on a lame joke at the Academy Awards show.
This patronizing, paternal attitude infantilizes women and reduces them to helpless damsels needing a Big Strong Man to defend their honor least they swoon from the vapors. If he was really doing it for his wife, and not his own need to prove himself, he might have thought about the negative attention this brought on them, much harsher than the benign joke. That would have been truly defending and respecting her. This “women need men to defend them” is the same justification currently being proclaimed by conservatives passing laws to restrict abortion and the LGBTQ+ community.
Worse than the slap was Smith’s tearful, self-serving acceptance speech in which he rambled on about all the women in the movie King Richard that he’s protected. Those who protect don’t brag about it in front of 15 million people. They just do it and shut up. You don’t do it as a movie promotion claiming how you’re like the character you just won an award portraying. But, of course, the speech was about justifying his violence. Apparently, so many people need Smith’s protection that occasionally it gets too much and someone needs to be smacked.
What is the legacy of Smith’s violence? He’s brought back the Toxic Bro ideal of embracing Kobra Kai teachings of “might makes right” and “talk is for losers.” Let’s not forget that this macho John Wayne philosophy was expressed in two movies in which Wayne spanked grown women to teach them a lesson. Young boys—especially Black boys—watching their movie idol not just hit another man over a joke, but then justify it as him being a superhero-like protector, are now much more prone to follow in his childish footsteps. Perhaps the saddest confirmation of this is the tweet from Smith’s child Jaden: “And That’s How We Do It.”
The Black community also takes a direct hit from Smith. One of the main talking points from those supporting the systemic racism in America is characterizing Blacks as more prone to violence and less able to control their emotions. Smith just gave comfort to the enemy by providing them with the perfect optics they were dreaming of. Many will be reinvigorated to continue their campaign to marginalize African Americans and others through voter suppression campaign.
As for the damage to show business, Smith’s violence is an implied threat to all comedians who now have to worry that an edgy or insulting joke might be met with violence. Good thing Don Rickles, Bill Burr, or Ricky Gervais weren’t there. As comedian Kathy Griffin tweeted: “Now we all have to worry about who wants to be the next Will Smith in comedy clubs and theaters.”
The one bright note is that Chris Rock, clearly stunned, managed to handle the moment with grace and maturity. If only Smith’s acceptance speech had shown similar grace and maturity—and included, instead of self-aggrandizing excuses, a heartfelt apology to Rock.
My guess on the reason Chris Rock kept his hands at his side (or behind his back) is that he expected Will Smith to give him some shit, insult him back, or something. But not a physical attack.