Your “ironic” Joke Will Come Back to Haunt You
The lucky ones don’t use Twitter at all , which undoubtedly contributes to their peace of mind. But it also means that they are overlooking an important front in modern culture war. And if you’re not one of those who are forced to constantly plunge into the maelstrom of disinformation and constant outrage of the service, you have missed the ups and downs of the particular villain who came to dominate social media discourse over the weekend.
Twitter christened him Bean Daddy (he’s actually musician and podcaster John Roderick ), so named because he shared a story from multiple tweets (which has been deleted) of him denying his daughter a delicious baked bean snack – or, rather, it makes her work very hard to earn the specified beans. According to Bean Papa’s thread (which a helpful Twitter user posted here ), his 9-year-old daughter was hungry but couldn’t figure out how to use a can opener to access her dad’s baked bean snack. Despite her growing frustration, Bean Papa refused to be Bean’s dad; he got his daughter to tinker with the gadget through trial and error, trying to get her to figure out how to use it on her own. According to him, the allegedly hungry girl took six hours to open the can – in the Papa Bob saga, he recounted the saga in some glee, while everyone else on Twitter watched with their mouths open. Then the obsession began: people quickly began discussing the merits of Bean Papa’s methods, many of them calling his actions offensive (and while he fueled Twitter’s collective anger, it’s really not at all obvious that Bean Papa is a terrible father). behind closed doors). His newfound villainy shook the waters; many of his old tweets have surfaced and they didn’t look very good either . He was soon accused of being a racist, and threads began circulating that included screenshots of tweets using racial slurs and anti-Semitic language. Roderick (who subsequently deleted his Twitter account) has since apologized for the entire failure, including many of his past online remarks, which he admitted were indeed “racist, anti-Semitic, offensive and obscene” – although they were written, he states with ironic, sarcastic intent. Yes, don’t do it.
Even if you’ve never committed a viral oversight (or much worse), there is an important lesson to be learned from Bean Papa’s weaknesses: for anyone trying to make a splash in a public forum – like Twitter – always be aware of the broader context of your comments and about who makes up your audience. This social media guide has been neatly revised in another Twitter thread by writer Catherine M. Valente , who talks not only about why Bean Papa caused such a fuss, but how .
Sarcasm doesn’t really work on the internet
If Daddy Bean meant that this whole can of beans was a joke, he was definitely on the wrong track. As Valente explains, joking about something unpleasant is always a little more appropriate if the people around you know you well enough to know that your joke is an attempt to make fun of real assholes. Being irritable can be cool – maybe – when you’re in the comfort zone of your group of friends, but if you’re in a room full of strangers, you won’t be surprised if they take you at face value. Especially when the “room” is Twitter and your joke is presented as a contextless screenshot.
Valente goes on to explain how this perfectly applies to the entire Bean Papa saga:
First of all, there is a certain type of people who think that their blatantly offensive online comments will be interpreted as some kind of comedic frivolity, because, as they see it, in the end, they are essentially good people.
Roderick said this in his apology (which is actually pretty good considering these things ):
When I published this story, I didn’t realize that the language I was using very intuitively reminded people of the abuse they had received from their parents. … I was ignorant, insensitive to the message that the comedic image of my “pedant dad” is indistinguishable from the way cruel dads act, speak and think. … I re-read the story and clearly saw that I had formulated it so badly, so emotionally. Bean Papa, full of boasting and silly swagger, hurt people. I conjured up an abusive parent that many recognize from real life.
Alas, the internet doesn’t always take context or intent into account. And if you come across a humorous tweet that pisses you off, it won’t get an ironic warning. The wrong so-called joke can even get you into real trouble, as filmmaker James Gunn figured out in 2018 when some of his very gaudy old tweets were used as weapons by the right-wing media personage , eventually leading to the download of Disney. Gann from the director’s chair for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (although he was hired again a year later , not everyone can hope for that kind of luck).
The main takeaway when it comes to most stupid tweets of this kind comes down to the philosophy of abstinence: you should never tweet this way.
Like any other Twitter villain who will dominate the website lifecycle for one day, Bean Papa will eventually be canonized by some but forgotten by most. Valente’s Twitter thread provides a good lesson on how to remain largely anonymous online, and what is really worth striving for.