#twitter sheenanigans

[ingravinoveritas]

Very definitely the look of a man who has David Tennant tied up in his basement...

[ingravinoveritas]

You have a great site and seem to know lots about things Tennant & Sheen! Michael tweeted today responding another tweet that, AFAIK, he was not tagged in but it was snarky and critical about both of them. Ugh. One fan replied him with this and it kind of broke my heart: "I see you replying to people who are horrible to you. I tweet you telling you how much I love your acting and I get nothing." So sad. Why DOES he seem to give so much energy to replying to negative people? Any insights?

Hi, Anon! Well thank you for the kind words, though I will be the first to say that I do not at all consider myself an expert when it comes to David and Michael. I see lots of things and have lots of thoughts, and I’m glad to share them and have discussions. I did see the tweet that you mentioned, which does again seem to be another instance of Michael responding to a hateful tweet in which he was not tagged. And I think there are two things at play here, which are important to distinguish:

Thing #1 is that Michael is constantly being tagged in tweets--dozens and dozens, maybe even hundreds, every day. People asking him to do this, or look at that, or retweet this, but there is no possible way that he can give his attention to every person who wants it (nor should he have to, no matter what anyone says). Thing #2 is Michael responding to tweets in which he is not tagged--sometimes nice tweets, but usually negative ones--that he actively seeks out and gives a great deal of attention. Why? That is the question.

Let’s go back in time for a moment. A little over ten years ago, Michael appeared on the show Top Gear. And if you’ve never seen him drive before, the basic takeaway is that Michael drives like an absolute maniac. Flying around curves, not slowing down when he should...a sort of gleeful Welsh madness, as it were. So in my opinion, Michael tweets and uses Twitter the same way that he drives. He replies and retweets seemingly without thinking, music blasting and magnificent curls flapping in the wind as he cruises down the Twitter boulevard. He’s going so fast and so furious (I apologize in advance for inadvertently making that movie reference) that he doesn’t see everything around him. In the case of that one fan, though, I noticed he actually did respond to her:

So, much like when a squirrel darts out suddenly into the middle of the road, Michael did slam on the brakes long enough to see what was in front of him, and he wrote this kind response. Yet the question still remains of why he gives so much energy to negative people. I don’t claim to know the total makeup of Michael’s psyche--and at least some of this might be a cultural upbringing/British thing--but I think it comes down to there being a part of him that is more willing and able to hear something negative than something positive.  That’s something I can actually relate to myself. I was bullied all through school, called names like ugly, psycho, loser, retard, and so on. I internalized those words to the point where they fused with how I saw myself--irreversibly, unalterably. And while I don’t see myself as any of those things now (nor have I for a long time), I am always going to be more prepared to hear an insult than a compliment. To this day, when someone calls me pretty or beautiful, I can say thank you and accept the compliment, but it doesn’t quite fully register that it’s about me. Yet when someone says something negative, it always somehow seems bigger and louder and more real than the positive things, and as a result, I feel like I have no idea what do with the compliment but know exactly what to do with the insult.

All that being said...there is still a difference between feeling more equipped to respond to insults and actively seeking out those insults just to respond to them. I don’t know how Michael came by that tweet--whether it was sent to him, or he searched his name out of sheer quarantine boredom, or the Twitter algorithm randomly threw it in his direction. Neither am I defending the person who wrote it or agreeing with what they said. But I worry for Michael, because this is becoming a pattern of his, and it is having a noticeable effect on his Twitter presence. It sort of reminds me of Chris Farley in a scene from Wayne’s World 2:

Looking at all the tweets that followed that one, it seemed like there was something happening with Michael tonight, and that tweet was just the start of it. Whatever the case may be, I hope that in the future he is able to devote less time and energy to those negative people and focus more on the positive comments. So those are some of my insights, Anon. I hope this was helpful in answering your question, which I tried to do to the best of my ability. Thanks for writing in! x