Twitter and the Elephant
Originally posted on Twitter November 19, 2020.
A group of internet denizens stumbled upon a very long twitter thread describing an elephant. However, all being busy, they each only had time to read one tweet in the thread.
One saw the first part of the thread, describing the elephant’s trunk. Reading that it was long and think, she assumed it was a thread about snakes. “Cool thread about snakes,” she quote tweeted.
Another read the part about the elephant’s legs. Reading of how they were round and sturdy, they thought it was about tree trunks. “Wow, neat stuff about trees in this thread” they retweeted.
The third came upon the description of the elephant’s tail, that it was thin and long and loose. Thinking it was about rope, ze retweeted “Did not know this about ropes”
Another found the tweet about the elephant’s ears, seeing that they were flat and thin and blew air. “IMPORTANT — must read for fan lovers”, she retweeted.
Yet another read the tweet about the elephant’s side, thick and rough and impenetrable. Thinking it was about walls, he quoted it saying “WALLS WORK. See below:”
The last one found the description of the elephant’s tusk. Seeing it to be sharp and pointed, she likened it to a spear, quoting it thus: “this WEAPON is a DANGER to our children. Congress must pass legislation to ban it IMMEDIATELY”
A short while later, they stumbled upon each other’s retweets. Recognizing it to be the same account, they realized they were retweeting the same thread, but were confused about why they seemed to be describing different things.
“What are you talking about? This is about trees?”
“Don’t spread your snake propaganda here.”
“I can’t believe you would retweet such a dangerous thread.”
“Stop gaslighting me.”
Each tweeter brought their followers to their side, and a vicious war raged about what the thread was about. It grew to the point where some participants have not even seen the original thread.
The original thread author, tagged in these disagreements, realized the confusion and tried to explain the thread was about an elephant, and that the retweeters were arguing about different parts of the elephant.
“Wow, I can’t believe you would ‘splain it like that.”
“Who do you think you are?”
“I was a fan of your thread but I have no choice but to block you now.”
“Fan sympathiser.”
In the end, all of them blocked each other, and each found continued success talking about snakes or fans or trees to their individual captive audiences. The original author, meanwhile, deleted their Twitter account due to harassment.