Ed Scarry's Ocasio-Cortez Coat Tweet

About

Ed Scarry's Ocasio-Cortez Coat Tweet refers to a tweet made by author and conservative columnist for the Washington Examiner Eddie Scarry in which he posted a candid, from-behind picture of recently-elected congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Ocasio-Cortez had recently made news by being unable to afford a Washington D.C. apartment until she began receiving her congresswoman's salary. Scarry's tweet appeared to imply that the congresswoman's wardrobe proved she was not struggling financially as she claimed. This led to mockery on Twitter as users turned Scarry's tweet into a copypasta which they paired with various humorous images.

Origin

Shortly after being elected to congress, New York Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke to the New York Times^[1] in which she detailed the transition from being a bartender in New York City to being a congresswoman. In the article, she detailed some details one doesn't often hear about making the transition from citizen life to congressperson life. This included an anecdote about how she could not afford an apartment in Washington D.C., where the median rent is $2,700 per month,^[2] until she began receiving her congresswoman's salary, which would not be for another three months. Conservative media attempted to undermine this claim by pointing out that Ocasio-Cortez had at least $15,000 in savings, so she could hypothetically afford three months of $2,700 rent.^[3][4]

On November 15th, 2018, conservative author and journalist Eddie Scarry appeared to echo conservative arguments that Ocasio-Cortez was exaggerating her financial problems by posting a picture taken of Ocasio-Cortez walking in the capitol, suggesting that her clothes did not give the impression of someone who was struggling financially (shown below).

Spread

The tweet was quickly criticized by Twitter users for its invasiveness and the implication that Ocasio-Cortez didn't look poor enough to truly be unable to afford an apartment.^[5]

Additionally, Scarry's tweet was turned into a copypasta with which users posted humorous pictures in mockery of his tweet. For example, user @xtop posted a picture of the IKEA Monkey with the copypasta, gaining over 600 retweets and 3,800 likes (shown below, left). User @nicjbae posted a picture of basketball player Carmelo Anthony, gaining over 560 retweets and 4,000 likes (shown below, right).

Scarry's tweet was eventually deleted, but not before being mocked for achieving a Ratio of 20,609 replies, 397 retweets, and 1,498 likes that was in itself mocked. Twitter user @jmkrisko photoshopped Scarry's face and the statistics onto a picture of Wilt Chamberlain after he scored 100 points, implying that Scarry's tweet had achieved an all-time great bad tweet ratio (shown below, left). User @KT_so_it_goes marveled at Scarry's "performance," which included Mike Cernovich telling him to delete the tweet, gaining over 180 retweets and 730 likes (shown below).

Scarry later deleted the tweet and defended it by saying he was attempting to compliment Ocasio-Cortez (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

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External References