Sunday, June 11, 2017

all the little birdies go tweet tweet tweet

I love to be a smart-ass and I love the internet, so that must be the reason that I love Twitter. Twitter allows me to combine my two favorite activities. (If Twitter opened an all-you-can-eat buffet, I'd be in heaven!)

Remember this day-long exchange I had with @speakyteeth, the cryptic handle used by Arlene Van Dyke, wife of beloved actor/singer/dancer Dick van Dyke? Then, there was this comment I made that could have led to the end of a friendship. And who could forget my tête-à-tête with @RoryBBellows1* who took it upon himself to come to the defense of local pseudo-lord Philly Jesus, when I aimed an electronic salvo at the self-appointed deity one summer afternoon in 2015.

A few days ago, a local TV news reporter got into some hot water when she was escorted from the audience of a popular Philadelphia comedy club for "loud whispering, heckling and drunkenness." In her intoxicated state, the young lady got belligerent and verbally abusive, prompting club management to summon the police. Thanks to in-your-hand, on-the-spot technology, the entire incident was captured on cellphone video and posted to various social media outlets online. Within minutes, the whole scenario swept the internet. We were treated to a front-row seat, as poor Colleen Campbell's career unraveled before our eyes. She slurred her words, She reeled around on the sidewalk. And, best of all, she spewed a stream of vulgarities at an extremely patient and utterly professional Philadelphia police officer. He remained calm and unfazed, even when she called him a "fucking piece of shit," referred to the entire police force as "fucking cocksuckers," and then ordered the officer to "lick my asshole." She was eventually arrested, charged with resisting arrest, criminal mischief, and disorderly conduct. It was revealed later that Miss Campbell was informed by her employer, WB affiliate Channel 17, that her reporting services were no longer required by the station.

The morning after the incident, in typical Josh Pincus fashion, I tweeted this little observation:
It was a joke, of course. Most of my tweets are jokes, placed online in good-natured, if sardonic, fun. It even got a couple of "likes" and "retweets," and that is the goal of every, red-blooded "tweeter," isn't it? Well, a few hours later, I received this reply from one @liljohnmac77061, a Twitter handle that leads me to believe that there are 77,060 other Lil John Macs also logged on to the social media micro-blogging service. John — I think — appreciated my original tweet, although he ended his reply with a backhanded provocation:
What? A non-sequitur election comment? My tweet had no political content whatsoever. As a matter of fact, I recently (after a tiny bit of scolding from my son) made a conscious decision to avoid any blatant commentary about the presidential election, its subsequent results and the sorry state of turmoil our country is experiencing — thanks to the unhinged dipshit that currently occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (except on weekends, when he's cheating at golf and wolfing down beautiful slices of chocolate cake at his resort in Florida). I'm not sure what prompted this guy to take a sucker punch at me on a tweet that had nothing to do with any political agenda. But, Mr. @liljohnmac77061 chose the wrong person to accost. Especially on Twitter. I returned fire — not with words — but with a single photo. One culled from a quick Google search:
Yes sir, that's a troll and it expressed my sentiment exactly. For those of you who are social media novices, a "troll," according to the good folks at Wikipedia, is "a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community with the intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal, on-topic discussion, often for the troll's amusement." The website The Urban Dictionary puts it more astutely, defining the term as: "being a prick on the internet because you can." Well, @liljohnmac77061 was being just that. And to prove it, he responded to my photo with a photo of his own. This one, in fact:
Lovely. If this isn't an actual photograph of the rear window of his car, I wonder what he searched to find this image. No matter, without even thinking, I sarcastically offered this bit of encouragement:
Then, nothing. No further reply. No profanity-filled tirade. No meaningless threats delivered in tough-guy bravado emanating anonymously from the cloistered security of his tiny corner of the internet. Just dead air. Was it a retreat? Was he pondering the perfect comeback? Was he just dumbfounded by my rapier wit?

I scrolled through a column in my Twitter feed, listing all of the tweets in which I was mentioned. I thought, perhaps, I may have missed a response that got buried among the hundreds of tweets I blasts out in a day. (I am currently at 51,000 tweets and counting.) There was nothing from this guy. I resorted to searching his name on Twitter. My questions as to why this volley came to a hastened end were answered.
@liljohnmac77061 blocked me.

Mission accomplished. Another banner day for Josh Pincus on the internet.




* I would include a link, but it seems this guy's Twitter account has been suspended.

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