Every so often, somebody writes a sentence so perfect it transcends language and becomes something more perfect. A sonnet. A prayer. Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass.
And now: ‘hey elon if u see this please put the audio post feature back on here. Thanks, u frog build looking bitch. Barrel chested ewok u look like u eat sand.’
This masterpiece was delivered by Doja Cat in a tweet directed at Elon Musk, and when I read it first thing this morning, I laughed so hard and so long my dog started barking with concern.
Currently sitting at more than 4.1 million views and tens of thousands of reposts, it has instantly entered the pantheon of great celebrity insults.
‘You look like you eat sand is the single most accurate and coldest s*** I’ve ever heard said about Elon,’ one person replied.
Another wrote: ‘Barrel chested ewok is such an insane combination of words. You definitely been waiting for the perfect opportunity to get that one off.’
A third praised the artistry of the insult itself, writing: ‘Honestly. Very creative insult. 10/10. Bonus points for creativity.’
Meanwhile, another user correctly identified the achievement as perhaps the greatest feature request ever submitted to a social media platform: ‘Doja Cat just filed the most respectful and most disrespectful feature request in Twitter history. We stan a multi talented queen.’
Now, what makes this even funnier is that there is a precedent here.
In 2022 Doja Cat festively changed her X name to ‘Christmas,’ only realising she was unable to change it back after it was already done. In a moment of desperation, she posted: ‘I don’t wanna be Christmas forever @elonmusk please help I made a mistake.’
Musk himself replied after, surprisingly, solving the problem for the rapper. He wrote: ‘You should be able to change your name now,’ earning a ‘thank u’ from Doja.
The hilariously casual exchange went viral, and makes her latest social media masterwork all the funnier.
But for me, what makes the newest post so special is not that I think it’s accurate, nor is it the noble tradition of taking down a billionaire accused of a disproportionate amount of the world’s suffering and, more importantly, cringiest celebratory jumps ever committed to camera.
The special thing, for me – a connoisseur of online takedowns – is witnessing a generational talent at work. (I cannot name a single Doja Cat song. I am referring exclusively to her tweets.)
Many have wondered whether great artists are compelled to create. If Michelangelo had never encountered a block of marble, would he still have found a way to carve David into a tree stump? If Shakespeare had been denied pen and paper, would he have scratched Hamlet into a tavern wall with a nail? Is art, in its purest form, an inevitable outpouring from those gifted enough to carry it?
I believe it is.
Because consider Doja Cat’s process here. She went to post an audio note. She discovered the feature had disappeared. She decided to politely contact the owner of the platform and ask for assistance. That should have been the end of it.
But somewhere between ‘please put the audio post feature back on here’ and ‘Thanks,’ something happened.
The artist awoke.
The imagery began arriving faster than she could contain it, a creative spark building into a fire. Frog-build-looking bitch. Barrel-chested Ewok. You look like you eat sand.
You can almost feel her trying to hold it back and failing, such was the power of the muse.
Not out of cruelty, but because she had glimpsed something too profound to leave unspoken.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote of Shakespeare: ‘He breathed upon dead bodies and brought them into life.’
I don’t know if Emerson ever anticipated a future in which an international pop star would describe a tech billionaire as a barrel-chested Ewok, but I like to think he’d have recognised the same spark.
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