Tonight, we had the announcement that Ron DeSantis was running for President, announced live via Twitter Spaces. It had a lot of technical difficulties (as we reported) as apparently they broke the Internet harder than Kim Kardashian’s derriere. However, we had been through enough online premieres to expect that sort of thing. By our recollection it took roughly half an hour before they rebooted the ‘space’ and eventually got it to work, so DeSantis could make his announcement.
Still, it was interesting and we would recommend listening to the whole thing.
@GovRonDeSantis announced he’s running for president on Twitter. This was by far the biggest room ever held on social media. Twitter performed great after some initial scaling challenges. Thanks Twitter Team for adapting so quickly to make history!https://t.co/mTJ2INQ1Y7
— David Sacks (@DavidSacks) May 24, 2023
Besides the extremely solid pitch on DeSantis’ part, the Q&A got extremely law-nerdy in the best way possible.
Still, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that Trump was Tweeting sorry, posting on TruthSocial during the whole thing. (We refuse to call posting on TruthSocial, ‘Truthing’ if only because it’s silly to pretend no one will say anything on a social media platform but the truth.) Ian Miles Cheong captured some of the posts via his Twitter account:
Trump was angrily “truthing” about DeSantis the entire time the governor was speaking to @elonmusk and @DavidSacks. I want to know what his smurf account is because you know he can’t stay away from Twitter. pic.twitter.com/lZw4dG872j
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) May 25, 2023
We admit that the term ‘smurf account’ was new to us, but, long story short, he is saying Trump is probably on Twitter under a fake name—which is pretty credible. In any case, Mr. Cheong’s Tweet prompted this absolutely savage response from Elon Musk:
The only reason people even know this is because of screenshots posted on Twitter lol
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 25, 2023
He’s not wrong. Look, we have gotten accounts on all the Twitter alternatives: Gab, Gettr, Parler, and TruthSocial, but so far none of them have scratched that itch (Parler comes closest, in our opinion). We think the difference is the community, both in terms of the circle of friends and follows, and the mix of many different kinds of people.
Truth.
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) May 25, 2023
Meanwhile 1.1 million people listened to the Space
— Amy Curtis (@RantyAmyCurtis) May 25, 2023
Trump’s just jealous that he couldn’t do it on Twitter.
— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) May 25, 2023
Except literally nothing is stopping him from coming on.
That's harsh Elon. There were 7000+ likes on one of those "Truths." You know, the most popular one. From the most popular guy on the whole social media site. By a lot. That's pretty good. I guess.
— John Hawkins (@johnhawkinsrwn) May 25, 2023
His phaser was set to ‘sarcasm.’
I think returning to Twitter is meant to be his October surprise in 2024; will drown everything else out for weeks when it happens.
— Chase Geiser (@realchasegeiser) May 25, 2023
That is a credible theory, but realistically, if his campaign doesn’t get a lot more traction, we suspect he will return even sooner. For instance, Trump has a little over 5.2 million followers on TruthSocial. Meanwhile, Trump’s dead Twitter account has nearly 87 million followers. Now, it is true—just as Musk said—that if Trump says anything notable on TruthSocial that it gets shared on Twitter. But we doubt that it has the same reach Trump would have if he just Tweeted directly. How long can Trump go without tapping that resource?
Exactly! I think Trump will be tweeting soon. He won’t be able to stand it. https://t.co/1VFDgdTgBN
— Angela 💭 (@ms_babyrussell) May 25, 2023
Boom. Roasted. https://t.co/1sbwB2Mzqm
— @saltdog (@saltdog19) May 25, 2023
If @realDonaldTrump doesn’t get his ass back on Twitter, his candidacy is going to die soft and quiet https://t.co/umVpAPXyhj pic.twitter.com/TiYH4UKsik
— Enginerd32 (@timmerenginerd) May 25, 2023
— Paul Hookem 🇺🇸 (@PaulHook_em) May 25, 2023
My theory has been that the DeSantis announcement will draw Trump back to Twitter. https://t.co/SfsCAbZOtb
— Birdie the Early Bird (@monalisafmy) May 25, 2023
Fyi, Trump posted over on TruthSocial the same satire of the DeSantis announcement shared by this account:
#DesantisBrokeTwitter
Doesn't matter who you are, this is epic: pic.twitter.com/9yZh8UcXn6— Emergent Perspective (@_emergent_) May 25, 2023
As comedy, it’s about average, in our book. The FBI stuff was moderately funny, and the fake Trump at the end was pretty good, although he really didn’t sound very strongly like the former President. Really, for our money, they should have recruited Shawn Farash. Here’s Farash imagining Trump’s first Tweet returning to Twitter:
TRUMP'S FIRST TWEET BACK ON TWITTER!#MAGA #Trump #CaptainDeplorable #TrumpIsBack #Trump2024 #USA #AmericaFirst #STAYLOUD #LOUDMAJORITY@CaptnDeplorable pic.twitter.com/tDiUyKHFCI
— Shawn Farash ❌🐻 (@Shawn_Farash) November 20, 2022
That is a near-perfect (and pretty funny) imitation of Trump from a guy who genuinely likes the guy.
Finally, one person made an observation:
I’m still waiting to see if you’d let Ye onto spaces as a presidential candidate
— Justine (@BruinJustine) May 25, 2023
Heh. We’re pretty sure he won’t be back.
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