The Week in Tweets (Xs?) and Memes

Another wild one for the books! We were all on indictment watch, with the federal grand jury meeting again on Thursday in D.C. True to form, and apparently terrified of the imminent charges, The Former Guy was busy “re-truthing” conspiracy theories on his social media platform. This particular one falls apart with just a little bit of thought.

Many expected fireworks in D.C. by week’s end.

That’s a parody account, just to be clear, but it still gets a “blue check” because Elon Musk is an idiot.

Then on Thursday the real Jack Smith pulled a fast one and filed more charges in Florida instead of D.C., hitting Trump and a new defendant Carlos De Oliveira with a superseding indictment. Apparently, Trump and De Oliveria, who is the property manager at Mar-a-Lago, conspired with Trump’s valet Walt Nauta to attempt to erase video surveillance footage that the Justice Department had just subpoenaed.

The responses around the internet were fast, brutal, and on point with the thick irony of it all.

Folks then dug up old footage of Donald Trump making the case that he should suffer legal consequences for this very kind of behavior. Watch video here.

Also, this happened in Iowa yesterday and I can’t stop smiling.

This artwork gets a shoutout:

Speaking of erased things that brought down a president:

Gov. Ron DeSantis stayed in the news, but in a kind of bad way for his campaign. He had doubled down on the idea the Florida schools should teach the silver linings and benefits to slavery, including that slaves had picked up useful skills! How great for them! People had thoughts, and takedowns.

De Santis was even involved in a car crash (it was minor, but it turns out he was using state funded vehicles while campaigning, very on brand). This was my favorite take:

Things are getting so bad there that many Americans are simply unwilling to spend their tourist dollars in that state.

Speaking of 1860s, there was continued fallout from Jason Aldean’s “Try That In a Small Town” song. Here was a sharp take:

Speaking of fallout, there was this about the film Oppenheimer:

The nation was either riveted or in a collective yawn over (checks notes) Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, as Congressional hearings opened and witnesses swore, under oath, that there was a secret Pentagon campaign, decades long, to reverse engineer technology of alien origin. The Pentagon has denied it, which only fuels more rumor.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and so far there has only been extraordinary testimony, which doesn’t quite cut it for me, though some of those videos taken by fighter pilots are intriguing. But I keep coming back to this thought:

Many Americans just want our leaders to focus on more terrestrial problems.

The tooth is out there.

This thought hit me kind of hard when I saw it.

Speaking of stupidity, and as the title of this week’s installment suggests, the brilliant, billionaire man-baby who owns the-company-once-known-as-Twitter decided to push forward with his rebrand of the company…to the letter X.

Hoo boy. There was a lot to say and cover about this. Here are some highlights, starting with some context:

Why the obsession with X, Elon? Is it…porn? Because that’s not great for your advertisers coming back.

In fact, the Indonesian government banned the new site because of its name suggesting porn. Elon’s a business genius!

Some used the moment to throw crap conspiracies back at the far-right.

And people kept the idea of the billionaire cage match going…

As Elon moved quickly to flip the bird, critics noted a distinct whiff of irony wafting from the world’s richest transphobe.

Many noted that the X appeared lifted from a very basic font model. This satire gets the *chef’s kiss*

This video summed up my own feelings about the rebrand perfectly.

And this clip represents how I feel people like Elon Musk actually became successful.

In lighter news, it was still Barbie Barbie Barbie everywhere. Remember when Ted Cruz decided to try it?

And the film was doing some important work.

This was scary funny:

We’re co-producing “The Notebook” this next season on Broadway, and I’ve always been a Ryan Gosling fan, but I guess Gosling’s an all-grown-up Goose now, so here is a series for you from someone with too much time on their hands.

Since we’re all in a silly mood now, here was my favorite video of the week.

Someone caught me napping here.

A cool moment of ingenuity from the 1800s. Watch it here:

And thanks for reading the Status…Quokka! Click here to watch.

Can’t beet that!

If this brought a smile to your face, throw me some love back by becoming a paid supporter, if finances permit. My work is made possible by the generosity of others, which is an amazing thing to be able to say.

Have a great weekend!

Jay

Since I’m thinking about moving in the spring, this tip felt incredibly useful: