Stephen King is a lot of things. Political analyst, movie critic and of course, prolific author. Not just any author, but one of the greatest we’ve ever had, with a string of hits that would make Lady Gaga jealous. He’s also very humble, which he demonstrated when someone took an easy shot at him recently.
King is no stranger to X (formerly Twitter) interactions, and on any given day he will respond to many seemingly innocuous takes on the site. For example, Elon Musk recently quote-retweeted a graphic that said Instagram was the “most deleted” app of last year.
Something about this simply rubbed King the wrong way, so he decided to go after Musk with a hilarious, mocking tweet, mentioning the word “Twitter” 10 times and making fun of Musk for having to put his “personal brand” on everything he does.
This isn’t the first time he’s gleefully called out Musk, for whom he hides no derision. For example, right after the switch to X from Twitter he said: “It will always be rock and roll to Billy Joel, and it will always be Twitter to me.”
King has no qualms about speaking harshly to power. He’s been fairly vocal about his opposition to guns, specifically AR-15s. He believes, like a lot of people, that these guns should not be in the hands of a civilian, saying the “only use” for the dangerous weapons are “to shred targets and people.” The gun “should be “outlawed.”
What about when someone comes for King personally? He shines there, too. The offending tweet of the day includes a very weak shot at King: “You used to be a good author.” …First of all, why? What is the point of saying that? Secondly, it’s not true. Just because the man has written a ton of classics doesn’t mean he’s not still crushing the game. Authors get better as they age — they’re not athletes. People are not always smart, especially on social media.
Did King let this weak-kneed comment affect him? Did he crumble? Did he attack? He did not. Instead, he hilariously agreed. “I know,” he said. “Those were the days right?”
Suck it up, anonymous X user. Bet you didn’t think that King would call you out now, did you? It just goes to show that what Omar said in The Wire after a failed assassination attempt was absolutely true: “You come at the king, you best not miss.”