Twitter Hates NY Times Op-Ed on Squashing Twitter Beef: ‘Nopety Nope Nope’
The New York Times opinion section published a joint op-ed today by two former media enemies, Times columnist Bari Weiss and leftist Vice blogger Eve Peyser, on how they stopped hating each other on Twitter — and Twitter hated it.
The piece — “Can You Like the Person You Love to Hate?” — explained how Weiss and Peyser occasionally beefed on Twitter, only to meet in person at a conference and become friends, IRL.
“You were like the caricature of the person I know hates me on the internet: Gawker Media alum, probable Democratic Socialists of America member, many tattoos,” Weiss told Peyser. “That’s like my personal axis of evil.”
When describing their first in-person conversations, Weiss wrote, “We talked almost nothing about politics, but about relationships and love and how we grew up.”
Peyser, who has faced a backlash on Twitter for the op-ed from her leftist media peers, argued that dismissing people you disagree with politically as “the enemy” is “self-defeating.”
“If we dismiss the almost 63 million people who voted for Trump as irredeemably evil, where does that leave us as a society?” she wrote. “You voted for Clinton, and yet, when we became friends, I worried I’d get ‘canceled’ if Twitter found out.”
Shortly after it was published, journos and other media figures on the left took to Twitter to mock and criticize the piece, with many noting it was a useless meeting, since the two never actually discussed their politics — which started their beef in the first place.
Peyser initially shared the article on Twitter with a preemptive hedge against her own followers: “what happened when @bariweiss and I met… and got along swimmingly. (I’m sure my followers will respond to this very calmly.)”
“Can You Like the Person You Love to Hate?” what happened when @bariweiss and I met… and got along swimmingly. (I’m sure my followers will respond to this very calmly.) https://t.co/LQlItltJeS
— eve peyser (@evepeyser) December 3, 2018
A number of Twitter users quickly resurfaced one of Peyser’s old tweets, in-which she wrote: “Maybe live your politics and call your fucking friend out.”
two people whose profession requires charm and the ability to manipulate meet up, discuss nothing controversial and walk away having been charmed by each other https://t.co/Xn3yP2HXAR
— Wesley (@WesleyLowery) December 3, 2018
Bari Weiss and Eve Peyser come from the same world as me of elite private education, well off parents, white women etc, etc. It’s more likely than not that they would be friends. And they weren’t even enemies to begin with.
— Madeline (@peltzmadeline) December 3, 2018
How about putting @bariweiss into conversation with a Palestinian woman instead? Why not see if they can be chums? https://t.co/6KoJb2yR2i
— Cooper Lund (@cooperlund) December 3, 2018
lol im so tired of people with access “finding common ground” with people with access pic.twitter.com/SuxWbcQgSs
— Calvin (@calvinstowell) December 3, 2018
bari weiss deserves to be ridiculed and banished to australia for all the platforming she’s done for polite fascists.
— Hasan Piker (@hasanthehun) December 3, 2018
1) it is hilarious that Bari Weiss took her twitter enemy Eve Peyser swimming so that she couldn’t wear a wire (the paranoia!)
2) Lots of people with terrible, racist opinions are charming in person. It doesn’t make them less terrible. We know this.https://t.co/FZTL813trd
— Heidi N. Moore (@moorehn) December 3, 2018
Searching for “Bari Weiss” on Twitter now brings up a link for canceling a New York Times subscription? I’m just going to leave this here and back away slowly. pic.twitter.com/LZYuzeMOCk
— Brian Heater (@bheater) December 3, 2018
This would be an interesting feature, if you found two people who actually hated each other on Twitter pic.twitter.com/8nySlroPGA
— Dan Nguyen (@dancow) December 3, 2018
All I have to say about the latest Bari Weiss piece is nopety nope nope.
— Jessica Mason Pieklo (@Hegemommy) December 3, 2018
This is beyond Inside Baseball. This is Inside Teeball.
— Julie Gerstein (@havethehabit) December 3, 2018
I mean, she’s the person who writes countless op-eds telling us the sky is falling because some students protested on campus.
— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) December 3, 2018
Like, Bari Weiss is not your rando uncle. She uses her huge platform to advance an agenda that hurts people. That’s not a difference in how you see the world, but in how you impact it! And if that’s not how you see your jobs, why work in media?! Why write about politics at all?
— Natalie Shure (@nataliesurely) December 3, 2018
[image via screengrab]
