Bret Stephens Bedbugs Joke Callout

Overview

Bret Stephens Bedbugs Joke Callout refers to a situation in which conservative New York Times columnist Bret Stephens e-mailed a Twitter user, George Washington University associate professor Dave Karpf, who joked that Stephens was one of the bedbugs that were recently reported to have infested the New York Times New York City offices. Though the tweet only gained nine likes and no retweets, Stephens found the tweet and e-mailed Karpf calling the insult a "new standard" in "the things supposedly decent people are prepared to say about other people--people they’ve never met--on Twitter." In his e-mail, Stephens invited Karpf to come to his house, meet his wife and kids, and call him a bedbug to his face. Stephens also cc'd GWU's provost in the e-mail. After Karpf tweeted about the situation and shared the e-mail, Twitter users resoundingly mocked Stephens, leading to Stephens announcing he was going to quit Twitter.

Background

On August 26th, 2019, Twitter user @StuartAThompson^[1] tweeted "Breaking -- There are bedbugs in the NYT newsroom." As a joke, Twitter user @davekarpf^[2] tweeted "The bedbugs are a metaphor. The bedbugs are Bret Stephens" (shown below).

Later that day, Karpf tweeted, "This afternoon, I tweeted a brief joke about a well-known NYT op-Ed columnist. It got 9 likes and 0 retweets. I did not @ him. He does not follow me. He just emailed me, cc’ing my university provost. He is deeply offended that I called him a metaphorical bedbug"^[3] (shown below, left). He then tweeted the e-mail (shown below, right) sent to him by Bret Stephens. In the e-mail, Stephens called the insult a "new standard" in "the things supposedly decent people are prepared to say about other people--people they’ve never met--on Twitter." He then invited Karpf to meet his wife and kids and call him a bedbug to his face.

Developments

Both tweets quickly gained thousands of retweets on Twitter, leading to jokes and criticism at Stephens' expense. User @mattmfm^[4] tweeted that it was hypocritical of Stephens, who is known for arguing political correctness threatens free speech on college campuses, to ostensibly attempt to get a critic fired from his position, gaining over 1,900 retweets (shown below, left). User @cmclymer^[5] wrote that they receive much more insulting hate constantly on the site, mocking Stephens for getting angry at being called a "bedbug" (shown below, right).

Others made jokes about the situation. User @iamTannenbaum^[6] tweeted a parody 911 call Stephens would make, gaining over 1,600 retweets and 13,000 likes (shown below, left). Twitter user @DavidFutrelle^[7] tweeted a Stephens-related parody of the opening lines from Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, gaining over 80 retweets and 740 likes (shown below, right).

Stephens responded to the criticism and jokes by announcing he was leaving Twitter (shown below). His account is currently deactivated.

The following day, Stephens appeared on MSNBC, saying that Karpf's insult was "akin to totalitarian language" and that he did not intend to get Karpf in professional trouble when he cc'd the GWU provost in his email.

Search Interest

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