`Mean Tweets has easily become one of the popular segments on Jimmy Kimmel Live. All of the videos have gone viral with well over one million views. These tweets are so mean-spirited, anyone of us could end up slinking to the bed and staying under the sheets forever. Alternatively anyone of us could respond in hateful kind and spew venom right back to where it came from.
So why are these `Mean Tweets so hilarious at the same time? Because they're ludicrous, they're nonsense, they're so in left field that we just end up shaking our head and chuckling out loud. The way some of these celebrities recite them is also funny.
Still they're not entirely funny, either. These videos humanize the insular world of Twitter, not just by putting a face to the targets of such hatred, but also by bringing them wholly in person. We are then privy to how they react to it all. Some are definitely hurt and befuddled by these mean tweets.
These videos serves to inoculate us all from rampant meanness in social media. I don't think people in general are necessarily more despicable than ever before. Rather, it's about ubiquitous channels or forums that people, who are despicable to begin with, can enter online, then stew and spew. Clearly there is a place in the world for all kinds of people, including their kind, and the rest have to build up thicker skin.
Not just inoculation, but also diffusion. `Mean Tweets absorb the blow, in way a T'ai Chi master will connect with an opponent, roll back to deflect the force, channel it to his root on the ground, and ultimately empty it of its negativity.
There is poetic justice in that, I kept thinking.
Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!
Ron Villejo, PhD
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