Scott Baio's Online Meltdown: A Complete Timeline

Scott Baio has had some issues of late. He’s mad. Mad at liberals, mad at uninformed fans, and really mad at the Internet. Crazy mad. But a recent history of Baio’s insanity reveals that his fall was all but inevitable.

The warning signs were everywhere, be it according to the all-too-common fate of fallen stars, or Baio’s uncomfortable reality show. But his Internet meltdown started gaining momentum on October 27, 2009. This was when we first took note of Scott Baio’s interesting Twitter contributions. Granted, back in these early days, Scott was less of an angry guy and more the type to remind pro-choicers to be kind to their mothers.

Harmless! But by October 30, Baio’s gentle reminders quickly morphed into incoherent anger.

Baio had calmed down on November 9, choosing instead to redirect his energies towards his speciality: international border control.

But international issues could only hold Scott’s attention for so long. A pop-culture icon himself, he turned his attentions on November 23 to Lady Gaga, of whom he is not a fan.

Scott Baio, however, is not just a man of rage, and he had moments of sensitivity. Take, for instance, his December 21 response to the death of Brittany Murphy.

In January, however, Baio marked the new year by a return to his natural state: Not Awesome. He tweeted this picture of Michelle Obama with some intelligent commentary:

Shortly thereafter, on January 20, Baio — under fire for being, you know, totally cruel — explained himself: His (wife’s) best friend is black!

He also posted a helpful picture, in case the haters didn’t believe him.

The next day (January 21), Baio continued to go on the defensive — while also noting that it was everyone else’s fault for getting upset about his comments.

See what he did there? He’s like the Sun-Tzu of Twitter.

Then things were quiet (relatively speaking) for a few months. We decided to look away: move along, people, nothing to see here. That is, until April 7th, when Baio got very upset at the Twitterverse for not realizing that he’s more than an 80s acting legend — he’s a director. In fact, he directed 41 episodes of Charles in Charge. Show the man some respect.

Baio doesn’t have time to note the irony here, as he’s NOT DONE SPEAKING YET JUST LET HIM FINISH.

Actually, he’s not mad, y’all. Hug it out.

But Baio, by now a true master of all 140 characters, couldn’t go a week without raging on his keyboard. On April 12, he stuck it to the tax man — and all you lazy, poor people.

This is when things really blew up. We noted his comment, and he was not having it. On April 15, he waged war.

Then he dropped the race card.

And the prayer card.

From there, it was only a matter of hours until the Twitter hashtag #scottbaioruinseverything caught on, attacking Baio on his own turf. There was also an update to his Wikipedia page.

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On April 16, Baio — mad as hell and not going to take it anymore — reminded us ladies that “the broom and the dustpan are in the closet.” He did this in Italian, because why not?

Then, this past weekend, Scott’s wife Renee joined the party on Facebook, coming to her husband’s defense by dropping some poignant homophobia:

Yesterday, April 19, we posted Renee’s contribution — and she responded in kind, resorting to a defensive tactic similar to that preferred by her husband:

That same day, the website Scott Baio Ruins Everything was born. Baio also entered the the Urban Dictionary canon.

Meanwhile, Renee was getting all First Amendment on us, claiming that Jezebel wasn’t allowing comments from anyone who defended her husband.

Mr. Holder, if you’re reading (and we’re sure you are, as you totally have time for this stuff), please note: This is untrue. There are no unapproved comments in our system pertaining to this matter.

Since then, ABC News has picked up on Baio’s “bizarre blog war” (and indeed it is!); the Huffington Post is also covering the “anti-lesbian rant”, as is Newser and E!.

Renee, for her part, is responding to Facebook messages with threats to our publisher.

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Meanwhile, Scott’s blocked a good handful of the Jezebel staff from his Twitter feed, but he’s still got thoughts that he wants to share. Like, what’s the deal with Canadian currency? It’s so funny and weird!