Update: This article was written a couple of days ago. In the few moments since it was posted, the Internet informs me that @TheYearOfElan has admitted that the whole thing was a hoax. So you know, it’s all good. Tweet on, kids.
OK, help me out, will you? I can’t decide if this is great or tragic.
On one hand, other people’s ridiculousness is always entertaining. I admit to giggling at overzealous traffic cops (especially when they’re wearing sunglasses; somehow that makes them even more ridiculous), teachers who flip their sh*t at middle schoolers (who everybody knows can play authority figures like a piano), and patrons of transit both public and private who get all worked up like this lady Diane.
I even concur with the motivation of this tweeter, @TheYearOfElan. Ridiculousness should be punished when it infringes on civility and human decency. Live Tweeting people’s misbehavior is like making a citizen’s arrest — the collective public breathes a sigh of relief that someone out there had the balls to call out Diane’s bad manners.
If I’d been on Diane’s plane, I know I would have laughed at her. I might even have sent her a glass of wine, like @TheYearOfElan did. But I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have baited her with a rude note. And I definitely wouldn’t have tweeted the madness that ensued.
Because I’m pretty ridiculous, too.
Remember that chick who was on a plane next to a B-list soap star who wouldn’t quit propositioning her? That seems like a legit excuse for live-tweeting. It was her own situation, and it was seemingly her only form of self-defense, beyond making a big stink on a plane. Since he wouldn’t take no for an answer, she live-tweeted his career right into the crapper and now instead of a rising heartthrob, he’s a laughingstock. (“Now” might be a stretch, given the Internet’s short-term memory loss syndrome.)
But remember that other recent live-tweet, where some guy tweeted a couple’s breakup on the roof of his Brooklyn apartment, complete with photos? That just seemed like a heinous breach of privacy. Yes, they were airing their dirty laundry in public, but it’s not like the tweeter walked up to the couple and said, “Hey, guys, you’re making the rest the roof uncomfortable…maybe you could take this argument somewhere else.” He just shook their dirty laundry all over the Internet. With photos. (And we all laughed because for once it wasn’t us saying embarrassing things like, “Do you love me?” and, “You never let me talk!” to someone who clearly doesn’t care.)
This situation with Diane and @TheYearOfElan feels like somewhere between those two. I’m not on her side, but I’m not on his, either. In fact, when they got off the plane and Diane slapped him in the face, I kind of got up out of my seat and cheered.
As entertainment goes, it was a great story. It kept me guessing, it held me in a precarious balance between pity and hilarity, and it left nobody the hero in the end.
The trouble was, this entertainment was somebody’s real life. That’s what seems kind of wrong about it. @TheYearOfElan vilified this admittedly unlikable woman and made her a caricature; he inserted himself into her story and provoked her to even worse behaviour. It’s like one of those hidden camera shows, only it’s not all in good fun. She looks like a villain now, which any of us could look like, if we were having a bad day and someone kept provoking us.
I hope @TheYearOfElan keeps it real clean for the next several months, lest Internet karma take its sweet revenge on him.
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Photo by Elan Gale, originally published on Twitter on Nov. 28.
