“As humans are at once both righteous and sinful, so human existence is at once both heartbreaking and hilarious,” Carl R. Trueman put it. I love quotes. There’s nothing better than an intelligent person leaving their mark on the world with a short message. Every day, 867 million of such messages enter the wonderful world of Twitter.
Wonderful may be an overstatement, as Twitter houses some of the most unhinged, honest, and curious people that exist. Comedian Trev Lewis has gone on a mission to collect some of the most interesting and hilarious tweets to ever exist, posting them on his page “The Best and Worst Of Twitter 2.”
We reached out to Trev to get his opinions on the new and not-so-improved Twitter after Elon Musk’s takeover, as well as to understand how important it is for us humans to embrace the funny side of life.
To back it up a bit to a time not-so-long-ago, Trev told Bored Panda that he was conflicted about Musk acquiring Twitter. "Musk has a long history of buying his way into companies and then running them badly," he said, describing the common occurrence of a burning Tesla grazing the ponds of Twitter, as though a metaphor of sorts. You know how the saying goes: If it ain’t broke, don’t get Musk involved. But they did.
Now, a few months after it all transpired, we can all agree that “it’s a hot mess.” “I predicted Musk would run Twitter poorly, but he's performed beneath even my lowest expectations,” Trev said. From major updates on the daily, to Musk’s conduct on the platform, it clearly shows that he “fundamentally has no idea what he is doing. Twitter feels different in many ways now.”
For someone like Trev, who uses Twitter to curate content for other online communities, he’s been finding it much more difficult to source authentic content, as bot farms have been allowed to push their stuff to the forefront. “The good stuff is still there, and I still consider it my favorite social media site, it just takes a lot more effort to navigate,” he explained.
The future of Twitter is an uncertain one, but Trev still has hope for it, as long as its leadership is sorted out. “I think Twitter will quickly fall under the leadership of someone new, and then it will more closely resemble the pre-Musked version of the platform,” he said. “It's simply too popular to completely fade away. We've seen Tumblr experience its own renaissance recently.”
“Twitter is far more crucial to the zeitgeist than something like Tumblr,” Trev continued. “It has powerful and influential people on it. There's nothing else like it in the increasingly video-centric social media arena. People simply love to log onto Twitter and see what the world is talking about. So, I'm fairly confident it will find a path forward.” We sure hope so, but I think it’s time we returned back to the funny side of things.
Tragedy and humor are two tropes that will continue to define humanity. If you’re trying to find purpose, it’ll be somewhere on that spectrum. Trev believes that humor is “the most powerful and natural coping mechanism we have,” explaining that’s something we not only enjoy, but also need. “That’s why so much of the internet is centered on making people laugh,” he said. “That’s why I try my best to create spaces online where people can reliably find something to laugh at and brighten their day.”
To go back to the perplexing quote at the very beginning of this article—“Nothing is funnier than unhappiness”—we can see the interpolation of the two. Humor can be emphasized by objectively ridiculing unhappy events in order to relieve the tragic feelings, states Arisa Tohma in her discussion of the play. The narrow line between tragedy and hilarity makes for an interesting dynamic, in which both sides share two sides of the same serious truth.
Dorion Sagan in his essay “The Human is More than Human: Interspecies Communities and the New ‘Facts of Life’” argues that it’s not possible to understand life without understanding the role of energy, and although he speaks on the need for humans to live more in tune with nature and its cycles, I found this idea to be quite interesting.
Our body stores all sorts of information in the form of energy, most of which we don’t think too much about. We’re often taught to bury our pain and soldier on, and, according to Healthline, this can lead to repressed emotions, also known as unconscious avoidance over time. Ever feel like you need to cry, scream, laugh, punch a pillow, or dance it out? Then you should probably do so.
We’re all just batteries full of anxieties, random spouts of happiness, and the craving for mac n’ cheese. Why not have a laugh, because crying makes the eyes quite sore. And if you laugh hard enough you cry—it’s a massive win!
As the New Year is right around the corner, we asked Trev to give a little message to his fans and to our readers: “I wish for my followers to find this year more stable and rewarding than recent ones. We’ve all been through so much lately, with various world events assaulting our wellbeing. Even if the world doesn’t dramatically improve itself, it’s my hope that we all grow stronger and learn how to better manage everything it throws at us.”
“I believe this is within our grasp, no matter how great our challenges going forward may be. And I hope that the content I create and curate can be one small part of how people manage that day-to-day stress. I’ll continue doing my best to make that happen.”
Make sure you give “The Best and Worst Of Twitter 2” and Trev himself a follow on Facebook. And if you’d like to see more of what Trev’s up to, he’s also got a podcast and a YouTube channel called 'Trev Show' where he discusses present-day issues and memorable events.
As you continue scrolling through this list, don’t forget to upvote your favorites and leave some nice comments for us and your fellow Pandas to find. Life is all about having a long hearty laugh at all the things you can’t control, then getting back to washing the dishes. Hope you have a lovely day and a wonderful upcoming New Year!
