The tragic deaths of nine current students? Nope. The athletic department briefly coddling a suspected rapist, and large sections of the student body begging for his reinstatement to the basketball team? Of course not. That one football game against Alabama? Close, but no cigar. The totality of one Kalen Wagoner's sports columns? Maybe second-worst, but still not it.
No, according to my esteemed former employers at The Maneater, it was actually the ebonics and improper grammar displayed on the student body president's Twitter. (BEWARE: block of text ahead because the stupid website won't allow me to directly link to the upcoming section.)
MSA President Twitter was an embarrassment
If you scroll back through the @MSAPresident Twitter account, you’ll see tweets congratulating student organizations, announcing events and informing students about the Missouri Students Association. Or, at least you will until you scroll back past Dec. 14. Don’t let Nick Droege’s name and photo fool you — these are the tweets of our former MSA President Xavier Billingsley.
For an entire year, Billingsley shared his stream of consciousness to the student body, tweeting things like “My dad’s boots are awesome #southernproper” on Feb. 3 and “Yeah buddy rolling like a big shot” on July 1 and even “Ahhhhhhhh I’m so crunk right now #msaelections” on Nov. 7.
It's fun to relive Billingsley’s @MSAPresident Twitter feed: We celebrated the holidays with Billingsley, such as on May 5, “Philisophy is that wall blocking me from Cinco De Mayo and my sombrero.” He reminisced about his “ratchet days” on Sept. 11, cheered on Team USA in the Olympics on July 27 with “AYYYEYEEEEE #TeamUSA” and celebrated joining the SEC on July 1 with “Ya boy is getting emotional with it. #SEC14 #SoProud.”
Through all the misspelled, irrelevant and occasionally incoherent @MSAPresident tweets, Billingsley had us laughing.
But should we be laughing?
The MSA president before Billingsley, Eric Woods, called out Billingsley’s tweets saying, “Was that a sentence? Is that what they’re teaching you in your classes this semester?” to which Billingsley responded, “SHUT UP ERIC!”
These tweets would have been fine had Billingsley tweeted them from his personal account, @DJXJ – which he often invited “join the party and follow him at” – but they were from the MSA President account, which is read by prospective students, administrators and the entire student body.
More importantly, though, the MSA president is supposed to represent the student body through all his interactions, including Twitter.
Billingsley didn’t seem to think so. Instead, his Twitter feed was unprofessional and used for fun. Billingsley said he has the “best tweets west of the Mississippi.” – we’ll at least give you the most interesting, XJ.(RELEVANT GIF.)
He said "ratchet." He told someone to "SHUT UP" in ALL CAPS! He had the nerve to USE HIS TWITTER ACCOUNT FOR FUN. Gosh, what's the proper punishment? I vote we force feed him pages from the AP Stylebook until his stomach bursts. That sounds about right.
If Billingsley's words kept some Yahweh-forsaken helicopter mommy in Ladue from sending little Billy to our big, bad SEC college town, then good. I'm sure he's enjoying SLU immensely. Better for him to mix with Jesuits than black frat guys who use words not approved by Webster's on a totally voluntary social networking account.
"But should we be laughing," you ask? Sure! Why the fuck not! If anything, applaud the man for his creativity. Anyone can tweet out links to press releases or inspirational YouTube videos. It takes a truly special man to pull off the use of #southernproper.
Were the tweets unexpected from such an exalted political figure? Sure. Were they in any way harmful? Nope. Sexist? Uh-uh. Racist? Not nearly as much as the editorial above. Funnier than the "approval matrix" shamelessly stolen from eminent journalistic outfit Buzzfeed that appeared in the same section? You betcha.
Lump The Maneater in with Slate, Salon, The Atlantic, etc: basically, every other awful "liberal" media outlet (that I happen to regularly consume). For fuck's sake, there are enough real crises already; no reason to get so sanctimonious over manufactured trauma. It's time to quit writing whiny, circlejerky editorials espousing the virtues of political correctness that themselves patronize certain racial or class demographics. Maybe then good, sensible 'Murricans could take the craft of journalism seriously again.
