The Week in Tweets and Memes

This week, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Floriduh finally threw his hat into the ring for president, making it official on a Twitter Spaces led by tech genius and infallible billionaire businessman, Elon Musk. Given that it was just an audio session, you’d think it would go off flawlessly. Right? Who needs all those engineers?

(Narrator: It was not flawless.)

The launch was marred by technical glitches, with silence for a good part of the beginning, mumbling by Musk, and the sound cutting in and out. Listeners started giving up and leaving. To get a sense of the epicness of the fail, my buddies at Meidas Touch captured the first part of it forever here. (Click image to open video.)

The derision and the memes flowed quickly, particularly from the Trump camp. There are too many to choose from, so I picked a few at random. It’s fun to see the two factions fight. Here’s a quick video meme (click to play original).

The left had its fun as well…

The rocket comparisons were inevitable.

And former Never Trumper Republicans, who also hate DeSantis, weighed in…

So did Biden, with the epic takedown.

Okay, quick pledge break for you free subscribers!

Once Ron finally got going, Trump acolytes moved quickly to counter message. Four Seasons Total Landscaping was monitoring, and you really can’t make this up:

To give a sense of the level of discourse between the camps, DeSantis’s press secretary got into an argument online about her Botox injections with a 16-year old future incel:

It’s about as elevated as this thread I came across, courtesy of @FredTaming on Twitter:

Fred summed up my feelings on the above convo well.

In other stupidity, there was Lauren Boebert, unwittingly admitting something about conservatives. “Stuff like this”—meaning fighting hate and antisemitism?

Marjorie Taylor Greene had a historically embarrassing moment. Click to watch video.

Trump’s lawyers, sensing an indictment from Jack Smith is imminent, sent a letter demanding a meeting with Merrick Garland, because Hunter Biden. Garland declined. It had a lot of this kind of vibe:

Target was the sudden, well, target of right-wing anti-LGBTQ hate and attacks, with bomb threats called into several stores and videos of patrons knocking over pride displays going viral. This guy had the best response to the insanity—click to watch.

Ice-T weighed in on the tension online as Americans squared off and dug in:

Even this panda had HAD it.

The Orca Whales got in on the aggression, too. And someone made it political, but in a clever way:

I had to go to Puppy Twitter to find my own way back from the brink. Click to watch this good boy.

Cute animals moving quickly apparently was a theme. Click to watch:

This huge fish reminds me of my dog Hudson when I prepare her food. Click to watch:

HBO Max bafflingly has decided to drop the HBO part of its name, because that’s the valuable part of it. A moment for nerd humor:

Then the (checks notes) Empire State Building Twitter Account weighed in.

9/10 because of the typo. But this next one was a 10/10. Promote that intern!

Warning: This image will alarm anyone with OCD.

My heart hurt when I heard the news of Tina Turner’s passing. The tributes were many, but this one was astonishing (Artist name in pic in the sand.)

I’ll leave you with an earworm, courtesy of this tweet about a mobile home wreck with only minor injuries on I-485. You’re welcome!

Have a great long weekend!

Jay

If I made you smile this morning, you can put one on my face, too, by taking out an upgrade to your subscription if you have been meaning to! (Only if $6/mo is doable for you, of course…)