On a term that’s gone ’round the world; the whys and wherefores of Twitter; a Google doodle; Hugh Grant’s commendation; and more
Last night, there was a debate, a presidential debate, between the two candidates in France: Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen. I am writing before the debate. Was it a humdinger? A snooze-fest?
In the days leading to the debate, Le Pen said she hoped it wouldn’t be “une succession d’invectives, de fake news, d’outrances” — a series of insults, fake news, and excesses, or outrages.
Interesting that she used the term “fake news,” in English. Donald Trump sent that term all over the world. There have been articles on this subject: here, for example, and here. Syria’s Assad has used the term. Venezuela’s Maduro has used it. So have Erdogan (Turkey), Duterte (the Philippines), Orbán (Hungary), and many others.
Those others include Vladimir Putin. And speaking of him . . .
You may recall an exchange between Trump and Putin in 2019, at a G20 summit in Japan. There was a photo-op. Noting the journalists in the room, Trump quipped, “Get rid of them.” (Putin is exceptionally good at that.) Trump then said, “‘Fake news’ is a great term, isn’t it? You don’t have this problem in Russia, but we do.” Putin answered, in English, “We also have. It’s the same.”
There is a lot of fake news in Russia, true — from the state media.
In my experience, when people say “fake news” they generally mean news that they don’t like, or news that is inconvenient to them.
Not only do people accuse others of delivering fake news, they accuse them of being fake news. I have faced this accusation myself. When someone doesn’t like something you have written, he may say, “You’re fake news.”
Someone once said to me, “You’re CCP.” He meant the Chinese Communist Party. (By the way, I have won awards for my writing on human rights in China. Forgive the boast, please.)
Josh Mandel, the Ohio Republican, is one politician who calls reporters “fake news.” To read a story on the matter, go here. Interesting, and a little sad, in my view.
As I and others have noted, Trump changed the way people talk — certainly on the right. Last year, Kevin McCarthy, the GOP leader in the House, met in the Oval Office with President Biden on the subject of infrastructure. He texted to his supporters, “I just met with Corrupt Joe Biden and he’s STILL planning to push his radical Socialist agenda onto the American people.”
That is pure Trump. Or a pol talkin’ Trump.
Back to France for a moment. Marine Le Pen said “fake news” instead of, say, nouvelles fausses. When I was in college, a man named Jack Lang was culture minister, and American righties like me couldn’t stand him, in part because he was campaigning against the use of English words and phrases in French. We thought he was anti-American. But at this remove, I think, “What if I were a Frenchman?”
Huh. Would I be like Jack Lang, trying to protect the French language from outside influences? From words such as “weekend” (instead of fin de semaine)? France First! I don’t really know. English is a big, big language — a sprawling, protean language — adopting and assimilating words and phrases from all over the world. French is . . . different.
And vive la différence, as we say here in the U.S. of A.
• I have noticed a spate of articles on Twitter — about Twitter, I mean. Mainly negative, or focusing on the negative: the bad of Twitter. Many people want Elon Musk to buy Twitter and blow it up. Personally, I want Musk to stop doing business in the Xinjiang region, home of the Uyghur genocide, and to stop collaborating with the CCP period. In any event, there is a lot of bad about Twitter, certainly, and a lot of good, too.
You can connect with people from all over the world, if you want to. Meet people you would not have met otherwise.
A colleague once said, “My problem with Twitter is, anyone can reach you, from anywhere.” That is one of the things I most like about Twitter. And if I don’t want to be reached, by a particular reacher — I can make myself unreachable.
You can read news and opinion from all over the world. News and opinion you would not have seen otherwise.
If you’re into stamp collecting, you can connect with other stamp collectors. If punk rock is your thing, you can punk-rock to your heart’s delight.
In other words, you can find your niche, or several niches — scratch your niches.
Now, you have to exercise control over how you use the platform. As at a buffet, let’s say. You have to be disciplined about whom you follow, what you write, and so on. Do you like getting entangled in arguments? Well, do that if you want. And if you don’t — don’t.
Mona Charen once told me about a cartoon she had enjoyed. It showed a woman at a computer, late at night. She was calling out to her husband, “I can’t come to bed, someone is wrong on the Internet!”
It could be that problems, when there are problems, lie not with Twitter — the platform, the medium — but with its users. Individually. People are responsible. They are not helpless victims. And is the idea of personal responsibility still alive in our society?
As I see it, leaders on left and right infantilize the public. “Big Tech is doing you down,” they say. “Big Pharma is doing you down.” Big this, Big that. It could be so. But maybe we, too, bear some responsibility? For what we do, who we are? Maybe we have a little agency, as regards our own lives?
The social media can be very, very rough. Years ago, my friend Jonathan V. Last said to me, “Why would you want sheer malice burned into your retinas day after day?” He was talking about Twitter. And it was a damn good question. Well, I tend to block the malicious. Minimize the malice.
Some people say, “Oh, don’t block them! Mute them instead. If you block them, they’ll know about it, and be proud of it.” I don’t really care, frankly. Let them be proud. There is an old expression: “Why rent when you can own?” I say, “Why mute when you can block?”
I recall something my late friend and colleague Mike Potemra said. He said he had found a new definition of depression: “a thousand commenters in your head.” I often tell young writers, “You don’t have to look at the comments section, you know.” And when they do look at it — they tend to play to it, which is ruinous for a writer.
Anyway, Twitter can be a joy and a godsend — a fantastically useful tool. Or it can be a nightmare. A lot depends on us.
And, trust me, I preach to myself as much as to anybody. I preach to myself first and foremost — or only. Over and over, I have touched hot stoves. We have to master our cooking, sooner or later.
I’ll let you know when I do (if I do). (In the meantime, I’d better remember my oven mitts.)
• I have many, many more items for you, but I’ve gone on too long, in the first two. Want to do some language, real quick? If you have two things, one is better, one is worse. (They could be equal, but never mind that — I’m going for a language point.) If you have three or more things, one is best, one is worst.
If two people are competing, you say, “May the better man win.” If there are three, or 90, you say, “May the best man win.”
Okay, an article about the latest PGA Tour event said, “But as it turned out, Spieth was able to weather the storm, posting a very good number early on Sunday and holding on to best Cantlay in the playoff.”
Do you “better” the other guy in the playoff? Sounds a little weird, doesn’t it? Do you “best” him, as this sportswriter has said?
I’m not issuing a ruling, for once (but I think “better”). (I would probably skirt the whole issue and say “beat.”)
• Hugh Grant, the actor, was commending a documentary on Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, and political prisoner. I love the way he worded his commendation:
Gripping, beautifully made, inspiring and genuinely funny. Unmissable. And I hate everything.
(That was on Twitter, by the way. I’ll miss it when it’s gone. I hope something similar rises in its place. And if others don’t want it — for heaven’s sake, they don’t have to have it. No one has to have it now. Viva la libertà! as Don Giovanni says.) (But he wants his liberty for the purpose of gettin’ hi’ freak on, just about solely.)
• A little music? One day earlier this month, I went to use Google. I saw an image, an illustration, along with the logo. This illustration is called the “doodle,” I have learned.
I wrote to two opera-minded friends and said, “You know, when I first saw this, I thought it was Montsi!” I was referring to Montserrat Caballé, the late, great Spanish soprano. One of my friends wrote me back and said, “It is Montsi!”
Well, I’ll be damned. It was. How the hell did Google know about Montserrat Caballé? Is there hope for our culture yet? When I asked this question on Twitter, someone responded, “It’s probably because she once sang with Freddie Mercury.”
You know, I bet that’s right.
• Just one review for you — of Yuja Wang, the Chinese pianist, in Carnegie Hall: here.
• April is bustin’ out all over, as Hammerstein did not write:
Those are from Riverside Park, in New York. And here’s Columbia U, nearby: The livin’ seems easy:
I hope the livin’ is easy where you are too, or at least fine. Thanks for joining me. See you later.
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