Former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani, now much in the news as the president’s legal counsel, recently gained attention (as if he needed more) by tweeting a single word: You
That’s it. Not even a period. We assume it was what’s colloquially known as a “butt-tweet,” similar to Trump’s famous pronouncement “Despite the constant negative press covfefe” or then-White House spokesman Sean Spicer’s cryptic messages “n9y25ah7” and “Aqenbpuu”; or, more recently, British home secretary Sajid Javid’s tweet of the single letter “I.”
Twitter went to work on Giuliani’s monosyllable, some finishing the mayor’s message (“. . . make me feel brand new”), others offering acid commentary. The account @PopeHat, for instance, noted that Giuliani had finally made a public statement without making things worse for his client.
It’s either a sign of our society’s insanity or a reminder that things aren’t so bad that we can all laugh at these meaningless electronic belches. Perhaps it’s both.
