Wednesday
As I was teaching Twelfth Night at the University of Ljubljana yesterday, the chance arose to make a Twitter reference. Billionaire Elon Musk,of course, has bought the social media platform for $44 billion and now appears intent on using it to strike back at critics.
After a number of these critics penned parodies of Musk, Musk decreed that all parodies should be labeled as such. The whole point of a parody, however, is for the reader to recognize the joke on his or her own. There’s a moment of disbelief (for a moment, it feels real), followed by the realization that it’s parody. Labeling it ruins the joke.
Which is to say, Musk is behaving like Malvolio.
Lady Olivia’s humorless steward takes special offense at Feste, her court jester. At one point, after Feste has twitted Olivia for excessively mourning her brother, the amused countess turns to Malvolio and asks, “What think you of this fool, Malvolio?–doth he not mend?” To which Malvolio sourly replies,
Yes, and shall do till the pangs of death shake him: infirmity, that decays the wise, doth ever make the better fool.
In other words, we become more foolish as we age towards death.
Striving for a witty put-down of Feste, however, is like Musk attempting a snappy rejoinder to his Twitter critics: it’s a back-and-forth he’s bound to lose. Feste replies,
God send you, sir, a speedy infirmity, for the better increasing your folly! Sir Toby will be sworn that I am no fox; but he will not pass his word for two pence that you are no fool.
Malvolio is left to flail around—” I marvel your ladyship takes delight in such a barren rascal”—leading to a reproof from her that could well be applied to Musk:
Oh, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, and taste with a distempered appetite. To be generous, guiltless and of free disposition, is to take those things for bird-bolts that you deem cannon-bullets: there is no slander in an allowed fool, though he donothing but rail; nor no railing in a known discreet man, though he do nothing but reprove.
Yes, a Twitter parody by a decent humorist (“allowed fool”) is as harmless as a blunted arrow, as those who are “generous, guiltless, and of free disposition” know well. It so happens, however, that Musk is none of these. He is certainly not a “known discreet man,” which means that his complaining resembles railing rather than wise words.
In the course of the play, Malvolio’s self-love will make him prey to a nasty prank, which ends with him in a madhouse. At the end of the play, he storms off stage, vowing, “I’ll be revenged on the pack of you.”
One form of revenge open to Elon is taking Twitter down the tubes—although that would also mean setting his $44 billion investment on fire.
