A whole lot of ridiculousness went down online this past week, but pretty much all of it disappeared as soon as news broke Friday that the UK had voted to leave the European Union, plunging the pound into a deep dive, pushing international relations into confusion, and triggering the resignation of British Prime Minister David Cameron. But as the world falls into uncertainty and depression, it’s worth remembering that not everything is horrible; just, like, 90 percent of everything. For the other 10 percent, we present to you a compendium of some strange and wonderful happenings from the past seven days of the online activity we call “Internet.” While you’ve been fearing for society’s survival, here’s what you might have missed over the last week or so.
What Happened: It’s Kermit the Frog, not Kermit the Lizard. Where It Blew Up: Twitter, media think pieces What Really Happened: Good Morning America accidentally broke the Internet this week when it tried to get people talking about memes in the lead-up a piece about beloved Internet jokes of yore:
If one of those hashtags seems wrong to you, you’re not alone:
The outrage over #TeaLizard became such a thing on Twitter that think pieces started explaining the situation to everyone else.
Here’s the kicker, though; #TeaLizard wasn’t a GMA mistake. It was, in fact, a reference to this tweet from January:
That didn’t stop GMA from having to address the issue live on air, however.
The Takeaway: While this was a storm in a teacup (sorry, couldn’t resist), spare a thought for the innocent bystanders in this whole thing:
What Happened: Twitter doesn’t believe that Keith is telling the truth about his 93-year-old mother. Where It Blew Up: Twitter, media think pieces What Really Happened: Oh, Brexit. Before we knew for certain that the United Kingdom would go en masse for pulling the trigger on leaving the European Union, there was such an air of freewheeling terror and panic about the entire thing that fueled a campaign making fun of obvious propaganda tweets like this:
There’s so much that pegs this as a strawman argument; the cliche of the old (or very young) relative speaking a “truth” that no one would ever say aloud, for example. The idea that a cheer would go up from waiting voters for anyone saying anything like that. The idea that there are different voting boxes for Leave and Remain. Oh, and the fact that Keith has done this kind of thing before, and keeps messing up the ages of his mother.
Twitter! How did you react?
Of course, the media couldn’t resist commenting, prompting Keith to get defensive:
The blog post, by the way, no longer exists; it was deleted, in part because of responses like this:
The Takeaway: Well, someone got photographic proof of the mother, so it has to be real, right…?
What Happened: Look, forget about the result of the Brexit vote for a second and remember happier times, when the most important part of it all was the dogs. Where It Blew Up: Twitter What Really Happened: One light in the darkness of the Brexit campaign was the return of #DogsAtPollingStations, a hashtag that originated during last year’s British general election in which people shared photos of their dogs waiting outside of where they were voting. This time around, much to the delight of the media, it happened again:
The Takeaway: If this isn’t a sign that someone should get @dog_rates to cover the US elections, then we don’t know what is. If nothing else, it’d be a chance to bring some cuteness into an otherwise ugly campaign.
What Happened: The NRA announced a new program that people couldn’t believe. For, it turned out, good reason. Where It Blew Up: Twitter, media reports What Really Happened: Wednesday, a press release appeared online at NRA-ILA, a website claiming to be for the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action, announcing Share the Safety, a new initiative that would allow gun buyers to give a free firearm to those less fortunate than themselves with each new gun they bought.
“The online store, which can be previewed before its official launch at www.ShareTheSafety.org, features a line of stylish Smith & Wesson handguns that have been specially selected for ease of use and concealment in urban environments to maximize both safety and comfort,” the release explained. “Users can sign up now to be notified when the store opens on July 4th. Also on the website, low-income urban residents can apply to receive a free firearm. When one is donated to their city, a recipient is chosen at random from the pool of applicants who are legally permitted to own a gun.”
Twitter was swift to respond:
Of course, some were suspicious:
Turns out, neither Share the Safety or the NRA-ILA are real things, as subsequent reports revealed. The real NRA apparently plans to get its legal team involved, probably for revealing just how untrustworthy most people find the NRA these days. The Takeaway: In a week where civil rights hero and Georgia congressman John Lewis led a sit-in to push the conversation over gun control back up the agenda following the failure of no less than four gun control measures in the Senate, this hoax was well-timed. But the believability of it underscores just how scary many people find the situation surrounding firearms right now.
What Happened: Poor Abigail Fisher. As if it wasn’t enough to lose a legal battle at the Supreme Court level, she then had to deal with being dogged by Twitter. At least she got a new name out of it. Where It Blew Up: Twitter What Really Happened: Congratulations, Lavinia SheBeShonuff (co-host of the Just Thinkin’ Out Loud podcast): you really started something with this response to the Supreme Court ruling against Abigail Fisher on the issue of affirmative action:
Within hours, it went from one-off snark to the top trending topic on Twitter, thanks to tweets like this:
The Takeaway: Lavinia returned to the topic after the hashtag started trending, to address a potential factual error:
