Many Such Takes: Trump Shooting, Charcuterie Trauma, DEI Female Bodyguards, Kids on Vacation
The most unhinged discourse of the week, always free
Welcome to Many Such Takes! I stay up to date with the latest and most chaotic Twitter discourse so you don’t have to. If you see yourself featured here and you don’t like it, simply send me a Substack message and I will happily remove, no matter who you are or what you said. Right now I generally abide by censoring usernames if the person’s ideology is something I consider dangerous, or if the person is a small or small-ish account who said something controversial and who has the potential to be overrun with too many negative comments if not kept anonymous. Generally, I do not censor large accounts or accounts who said things that I don’t think will open them up to undue criticism. This week…
Trump Shooting Variety Pack
There are obviously so many weird takes about the recent shooting at Trump’s rally (listen to “Trump” talk about it here), so I’ve compiled the most insane ones here:
The context for the below tweet was that the Trump shooter was briefly featured in a Blackrock commercial that took place at his high school when he was a student:
One hour after the shooting:
While we think about the most unhinged stuff said about the shooting, we have to take a moment to extend some empathy to the terminally online people who, in some sick twist of fate, decided “not to be on Twitter” that night:
I was at a dinner with my family when the news broke, and I had to find out about the shooting from my 65-year-old mother. At the very least, I can console myself with the fact that I was on Twitter the night Trump got covid.
But nobody could possibly be sadder to miss such a night of updates than liberal reporter Aaron Rupar, widely known to be the first person to post clips from Trump rallies:
Woman of Color Joe Biden
Many Democrats are fractured right now over the possibility of Biden stepping down (presumably to be replaced by Kamala Harris.) Many folks who want this to happen still voted for Biden (or would vote for him again) but think Harris has a better shot at beating Trump. Granted, since the shooting, people haven’t been talking about the Harris/Biden switcheroo as much. But prior to the shooting, there was an absolutely monumental take on this topic. Namely, that anyone who thinks Harris should replace Biden needs to sit their white cis male asses down and listen:
Beloved woman of color Joe Biden is being forced out by a bunch of white men. You heard it here first, folks!
Just in case you didn’t think it could get worse, I saw this “telling Biden to drop out is rape” from Infinite Scroll writer Jeremiah Johnson, who is notorious for annually compiling the worst tweets of the year (subscribe to him!)
Vacationing with Screaming Kids
Robert Komaniecki (who is a dad himself) posted this video of two TikTok influencers vacationing with their children, with the caption:
The video featured something at least a bit relatable: parents take their two toddlers on a vacation, who cry and scream the entire time and don’t actually enjoy the trip; ergo, neither do Mom and Dad. I actually saw this while on vacation with my toddler and baby, and although we are lucky enough not to be experiencing nonstop screaming, I related to the fact that for parents of young children, vacations are just the same amount of parenting, if not more, in another location, as opposed to a “break.” I didn’t know what Robert was referring to here and it wasn’t immediately clear: was it the screaming (implying that any parent whose kids throw tantrums needs to be told they’re doing a bad job?) Or was it the fact that the parents filmed their kids’ tantrums and posted them online? And if the latter is bad, is Robert making things worse by platforming the video? To quote your average toddler, AAAAAAH!
Most people agreed with Robert. I agree it’s bad to post videos of your kids screaming for social media clout (I don’t post photos or videos of my kids at all- although I wouldn’t call someone a bad parent for posting occasional non-humiliating content of their children, to each their own.) o a lot of the criticisms of the parents in the videos, in Robert’s replies, seemed to boil down to the idea that parents shouldn’t go anywhere or do stuff with their kids if they know their kids might throw tantrums, that any child throwing a tantrum has needs that are being “neglected” by their parents, and of course, everyone’s favorite, “My kids never threw tantrums in public!”
Robert seemed to take a reasonable stance that the main problem with the video was the fact that it was a video at all (I mean, I think that’s a reasonable stance, I’m aware some of you out there believe parents should be sent to jail if their kids ever express any amount of discontent in public.) Robert also received an unfortunate DM that used the interestingly-worded (albeit technically accurate) phrase, “came into someone’s vagina.”
Charcuterie Trauma
Writer Shannon Sanders posted a cute tweet about creating a “Charcuterie Tuesday” tradition with her kids and was slammed for traumatizing them, by a 100-follower account whose username I’m censoring:
The comments didn’t disappoint; everyone hoped that the QT was satire but it is still unclear.
Let’s not forget that this isn’t even the first time charcuterie was a controversial topic on Twitter. If you know, you know:
DEI Bodyguards
“DEI” has officially joined the ranks of conservative boogeymen like “CRT,” “Obamacare” and “vegetables.” DEI stands for diversity, equity and inclusion and is the latest descriptor of anyone who, according to the right-wing influencers on Twitter, was a “diversity hire.” And that’s exactly the angle the right went with after they had a “great optics” opportunity handled to them on a golden platter (or, more realistically, a slightly bloody ear.) When news broke that Trump’s shooter wasn’t a queer trans communist of color, they had to find something, and they went with, “Why didn’t that dumb broad protect Trump?”
Check out this take, from a guy with a perfect username:
We got some good laughs out of it, though:
Best Tweets of the Week
This Trump/Biden romantic fancam
This take on Biden’s press conference:
This interesting take on sex positivity/negativity within Gen Z:
This hilarious Monty Python-esque courtroom transcription:
This TikTok screenshot :
Whatever this is:
I clerked for a judge as a new lawyer and sat in on voir dire and that (hilarious) juror exchange is not rare, in my experience 😂 I think it’s because people claim it’s the simplest way to escape jury duty, i.e. say you can’t be neutral. Sometimes it backfires if the judge is annoyed and tries to give you a hard time, though.
I agree with you about kids on social media. I just don’t post mine at all, but posting a few cute family pictures is very different from publicly humiliating your child or using them to sell product! But it’s also true that so many people are uncomfortable with kids just existing in public. Catholics call it “the culture of death”, meaning a culture that is hostile to kids and families.
Thanks for the rundown! Some of these killed me 😂 Re: charcuterie trauma girl, maybe I'm misunderstanding her point, but I do kind of resonate with the fear that one day my kids will judge my parenting not by the standards that I'm currently holding myself to but rather by the whatever parenting philosophy becomes trendy when they're older, and that some completely innucuous-seeming thing I'm currently doing as a parent will be deemed traumatic and abusive and they'll never talk to me again over it. But maybe that's not what she's getting at lol.