Ayatollah’s Old Tweets Have Been Uncovered, and Social Media’s Having a Field Day

With a war brewing and airstrikes lighting up both Israel and Iran, X users have been gleefully spelunking through over a decade of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s old tweets. And yes, they’re every bit as bizarre as you’d hope.

While his current feed is a barrage of anti-Israel declarations and revolutionary slogans, scroll back a little and the Supreme Leader reveals a softer, stranger side — one that offers musings on love, literature, and, inexplicably, being the class clown in clerical robes.

In one tweet from 2013, back when X was still Twitter and character limits forced everyone into absurd SMS-style abbreviated cosplay, Khamenei offered a throwback to when he was a “naughty&playful” young boy who just wanted to stay cool while wearing his traditional cloak to school.

“I went 2school w/a cloak since1st days;it was uncomfortable 2wear it in front f other kids,but I tried 2make up 4it by being naughty&playful,” he wrote more than 12 years ago.

Naturally, the internet lost it:

In another tweet, Khamenei tagged himself as an #AvidReader but just not into “cinema.”

Things got even weirder when users unearthed decade-old reflections on emotional labor in marriage. “Men have responsibility toward women’s needs & feelings,” he tweeted. On Thursday, over a decade later, one user dubbed him the “Chad Ayatollah.”

In another, he rebukes men who “criticize” their wives, adding: “she’s a flower.”

Dozens of posts have since been plucked from the feed and dunked on with the internet’s usual mixture of irony, affection, and complete disbelief:

And that’s barely scratching the surface. Somewhere in between threats of annihilation and sentimental hot takes, Khamenei has managed to become — if only briefly — X’s strangest main character.

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