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December 05, 2011

Twitter Feuds: Do You Want Some Ginger Ale for that Word Vomit?

By Carrie Schmelkin, TMCnet Web Editor

“But I couldn't stop. It just kept coming up… like word vomit.”

These famous lines uttered by Lindsay Lohan in “Mean Girls” in 2004 – when her character Cady Heron officially becomes one of the “Plastics,” or mean girls in high school, and starts lambasting her peers for having poor fashion sense and putting on weight – eerily foreshadowed what Twitter (News - Alert) would become two years later. A home for “word vomit.”



Case and point: Last Friday, “Teen Mom’s” Farrah Abraham, who learned she was pregnant out of wedlock with daughter Sophia when she was 18 years old, took to the social networking site to throw rocks at glass houses and comment on the recent news that Kourtney Kardashian is pregnant with her second child with longtime on-again/off-again boyfriend Scott Disick.

"Im Shocked Kourtney Kardashian is pregnant again, Did she not learn anything from TEEN MOM? Maybe its a fake pregnancy like kims wedding SAD,” the now 20-year-old tweeted.

The reality mogul, who is 32, quickly retorted back: “Why would I have anything to do with teen mom? I'm 32 years old! I may look young honey, but don't get it twisted. :)"

The word vomit didn’t stop there. Showing that chivalry is not dead (or that at least that some less classy form of chivalry isn’t), Disick stood up for his gal and stated, “We’re not teenagers ya f**king moron” to which Abraham responded, “Age and money honestly do not change a person’s poor choice. Quit making excuses.”

I could continue dictating the war to you (which went on to involve Kourtney’s younger sister Khloe and more comebacks from Disick, albeit more profane ones), but I think the point has been made. Twitter, in addition to becoming a convenient place to update loved ones and friends of crowning accomplishments and stressful moments, has also become an enabler of “word vomit.”

Do you need more proof? Then, consider these celebrity Twitter feuds.

Ironically enough, the queen of “Mean Girls” herself was involved in her own Twitter feud in 2009 when the King of Therapy Dr. Phil said in an interview about Lohan, "I'm convinced that she'll get sober one day. But I'm afraid that between now and then...I have this image that she's going to lose a limb or something before she does. And it scares me." Lohan’s Twitter response? "I thought REAL doctors talk to patients in offices behind closed doors. Am I wrong? Hmmmmm. I think NOT! Yay!"

Also that year, Miley Cyrus and her ex-boyfriend Justin Gaston started war when Gaston tweeted, "People mistake stupidity for bravery way too easily." Cyrus retorted with, "Yeah. I love when people mistake bravery with writing a few stupid tweets trying to make it seem like they don't care. You're afraid to love."

More recently, this year, George Lopez decided to poke fun of Kirstie Alley’s weight while she was competing on “Dancing with the Stars” when he tweeted, "Before the show, she went to the market and then she had roast beef” – a reference to the popular nursery rhyme.

Alley’s form of retaliation was to jab at the fact that Lopez’s ex-wife donated a kidney to him years ago: "I want your kidney dude..on behalf of ur X and all the women uv insulted...give it back.”

I could go on, but you get the idea.

What feuds like Kourtney’s, Lindsay’s and Kirstie’s show us is that perhaps one of the most “dangerous” aspects of Twitter is the immediacy of it – the fact that a heat of the moment thought can become cyber world fodder within minutes. Moreover, Twitter allows everyone to in theory get the last word in which means that simple scuttles can turn into month’s long sagas.

And with Twitter showing no sign of slowing down any time soon, all one can do at this point is grab some saltines and Pepto-Bismol and enjoy the “word vomit” rollercoaster.


Carrie Schmelkin is a Web Editor for TMCnet. Previously, she worked as Assistant Editor at the New Canaan Advertiser, a 102-year-old weekly newspaper, covering news and enhancing the publication's social media initiatives. Carrie holds a bachelor's degree in journalism and a bachelor's degree in English from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Juliana Kenny
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