The 100 Worst People On Twitter

@English50Cent

#ManyMenWishDeathUponHim

I’m not saying that you “have” to like 50 Cent. What I am saying is that, if you enjoy rap as a commercial artform, then it’s hard to name a musician with more classic chart songs since… at least the mid 90s. “Life’s On The Line”, “Many Men (Wish Death)”, “I Get Money”, “Hate It Or Love It”, “Poppin’ Them Thangs”, “How to Rob”… these are all enjoyable ways to fill up an iPod.

What 50 Cent lacks over certain other rappers in terms of Zadie Smith hagiographies and Pitchfork blowjobs, he makes up for in brutal likability. His online presence bears this out. Before Twitter, he was involved in all manner of internet scrapes with people as disparate as WorldStarHipHop, Def Jam Records, Rick Ross and a lisping Canadian teenager. His Twitter has given birth to blogs detailing his finest moments and Tumblrs dedicated to cataloguing every woman he flirts with. You may also like to check out his top tips for giving up onanism. A man for all seasons.

That’s American 50 Cent. We like him. Why don’t we like @English50Cent? Well… firstly, this is a played out gimmick. “Let’s translate a rapper’s words into a stilted form of the Queen’s English” goes back to probably the first sketch comedy show filmed after the birth of hip-hop. If you think the concept of different vernacular being appropriate in different situations is hilarious, then this is undoubtedly the Twitter for you.

But we did that back at #66 with @ShakespeareLyrics. Is being a terrible joke really enough to make you the 23nd worst thing on Twitter? Well no. There’s more to it than that.

Look at the Twitter bio. Exact quote: “A translation service for English-speaking 50 Cent fans”. The joke is that 50 Cent can’t speak English, the lingo he uses is so far apart from what is understood as acceptable English that he may as well be talking in Sirenik. A man who writes songs that sell all over the English-speaking world, a businessman who made $100 million from his involvement in the Glaceau company… he’s a grunting illiterate. Doesn’t know English. Here’s an example of a tweet that @English50Cent felt the need to “translate”.

 “I’m up I feel good and I’m ready for another day. Thank God.”

Damn, what a hideous syntactic mess. Lucky there was a terrible comedian on hand to turn that into something that sounds like Rex Alston reading a eulogy.

Look, I’m not saying this is “racist”. I’m saying it’s ignorant, and it’s dumb. The idea that a man comes from a certain background, a man makes a certain type of music, a man has a certain look… that he’s some sort of barely comprehensible ape that needs this sub-Radio 4 parody made of him.

And yet… even that wouldn’t be enough to put @English50Cent this high in the rankings. What does is the identity of the man behind the account. Say hi to Andrew O’Neill.

Mans is out here looking like your mum on her way to a Placebo concert. And his bio makes him sound like a cracking guy. Steampunk and heavy metal! Weird that someone with those two as his main interests in life could be such an unpleasant and disagreeable person.

But it’s that term there, “genderspazz” that really hits home. “Genderspazz”, like “queer”, is another word for “heterosexual but with badly applied eyeliner”. And that’s what brings it all together for me when it comes to this entry. The @KSIOlajidebt entry was about how the terribleness of YouTubers is infecting Twitter. This entry is about how the terribleness of Tumblr is doing the same. Andrew O’Neill is Tumblr in human form.

In the olden days, you needed to be actually victimized in society to call yourself a victim. You’d be black or gay or Jewish or working class or whatever. Now, all you need to do is log on to your Tumblr account, start a blog about how victimized you are because you’re genderspazz or otherkin or sanguinarean or you think you’re a piece of toast, and there you go, you’re the martyr of the age. And all the while that you’re moaning about society’s refusal to accept your dumb dress-up games, you’re being an abject prick to the real people in society who are disadvantaged. They can’t speak English, can they? Now check out this fedora and cape combo.

And that’s Andrew O’Neill. Maybe a racist. Probably ignorant. Certainly a cunt.

Sample Tweets:

“I fear for the structual integrity of my leg. Pain is pain, wherever the location.”

“I have egalitarian views. Even unattractive women deserve sexual partners. *laughs*”

“I am recording music with Akon, negativity notwithstanding. It is warm in here. One song targets financial institutions. Defecation.”