I’ve already written about the peculiar obsession of conservatives with domination of Twitter. As a relatively casual user of the medium, I haven’t personally experienced the deadening effect of conservative Twitter overkill. But Comedy Central’s Gonzalo Cordova professes concern that frantic abuse of hashtags by the Right is making Twitter boring:
Today Former White House Press Secretary Bill Burton attempted to start a hashtag game called #RomneyYachtNames. It’s so unfunny and forced, it’s exactly the kind of thing that would trend on Twitter. And it did, but not the way Bill Burton intended.
Conservatives hijacked the hashtag and soon started their own called #ObamaYachtNames. Never mind the fact that that barely makes sense. The stereotypes about Obama aren’t that he’s rich and owns yachts. That’s Romney’s thing. Obama is the elitist black liberation theology professor who eats kale with a side of dog, remember?!
But that’s not the only conservative hashtag game that’s caught in this week. Just in the past few days, the ones I’ve seen: #MorePopularThanObamaBudget, #ObamaInHistory, #ObamaFirsts, #LowerUnderObama, #ObamaBedtimeStories, #HomophonesforObama. If you feel like punishing yourself, just scroll down @MichelleMalkin Twitter feed. Re-tweeting the unfunniest garbage tweets she can find is apparently a hobby of hers.
I know this is a Comedy Central post I’m talking about, and also realize that the primary victims of conservative Twitter humorlessness are the conservatives who consume as well as produce this stuff. Still, it’s kinda sad, particularly since a lot of the folks we are talking about like to think of themselves as witty dogs, forever high-fiving each other at the appearance of even the most leaden bon mot. As one who agrees with Hunter Thompson’s maxim that “a sense of humor is the only prima facie evidence of sanity,” I’d like to see my political foes raise their game in this respect. Politics can become pretty damn boring if you are incapable of seeing its absurdities.
