Direct Message

Obama Read My ‘Mean Tweets’ on TV, and It Was Awesome

Last night, a handful of random Twitter users interacted with the President without even knowing about it. A day later, here are their reactions.

When President Obama appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Thursday, he followed suit with every big guest that drops by the show—and read aloud random, nasty tweets that have been written about him. Past participants of the “Mean Tweets” segment include Katy Perry and Matthew McConaughey, among many others.

Here’s the presidential edition:

Jimmy Kimmel Live! had been accused of creating fake tweets for the segment in the past, but these exasperations were very real.

RWSurferGirl (the “RW” stands for “Right Wing,” naturally), a self-described California “conservative” who realizes that there is “a fine line between social networking and wasting your life,” was pleased.

“It’s a win-win for all of us fighting the fight every day,” she tweeted.

She continued: “It was nice to see him not have to read from a Teleprompter,” referencing the long-held conservative meme that Obama can’t function without a teleprompter.

Eric Matthews, a “local karaoke legend,” had his “#ThanksObama” joke from late September featured on Jimmy Kimmel:

“I was at the Hawks game then my phone started blowing up that Obama read my tweet,” he said. Matthews was even rewarded for his “mean” tweet: “Hahaha the Sun Stop dude hooked it up with a free bottle of [Bacardi] and 30 rack of Keystone for the tweet #SpringBreak2k15,” he tweeted triumphantly on Friday morning.

“badman stalin friend,” declared that he/she had “just deleted a few tweets about jacking off and 9/11” after the Kimmel segment aired, “just in case.”

(The president notes that the “lol” is redundant, due to the prior “haha.”)

“Holy shit obama read one of my tweets about him on jimmy kimmel. thats fucking insane. he [doesn’t] get sarcasm though lol,” @theautho posted.

And “T.”—a “lover of gluten” and Vegan atheist—had riffed on Obama’s mom jeans roughly a year ago:

“Sure, I mock President Obama’ s jeans,” he tweeted in response. “But I do it because I care.”

He added: “I feel bad, hope he wasn’t really mad. Hah.”

Not all of those who had their tweets read aloud were swept up in the moment. “Diehard conservative” and Bucks fan Ken Berling was chosen for his tweet possibly suggesting Obama has no brain, or perhaps commenting on his big ears, over which the president has said he was bullied when he was young.

When The Daily Beast asked Berling what he thought of President Obama reading his tweet on-air, he replied, “Could care less he’s an idiot.”

Moral of the story: Tweet unkind things about powerful people. It might get you on TV one day.

The post has been updated to reflect a disputation of an ear joke. (Thank you, Ryan Teague Beckwith.)

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Asawin SuebsaengSenior Political Reporter

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