A Tweet of Two Sandwiches
LatestLast week, a corner of the internet went 100 percent gorillashit over a tweet comparing Taylor Swift’s vagina to a messy ham sandwich. And why shouldn’t it? It is gold-standard content, delightfully shocking and utterly insane.
Several times that day, I returned to the tweet, pleasantly agog. But other people saw something more sinister in it: the glorious advent of the ham sandwich wasn’t treated with grotesque amusement, but with the sanctimonious think piece. The Huffington Post published, “One Awful Tweet About T-Swift Sums Up Society’s Retro Ideas About Female Sexuality”; Us Weekly wrote, “Woman Slut-Shames Taylor Swift, Compares Her Vagina to a Ham Sandwich”; UK site Metro posted an article verbosely titled, “A mum just slut-shamed Taylor Swift in the worst way and no one can actually believe it’s real”; Mashable went the scientific route (“This tweet about Taylor Swift’s vagina isn’t just bizarre, it’s medically incorrect”).
The Huffington Post article rejected the premise that “Jennifer Mayers’” account @southern_mayers is anything but dead serious and dove into exactly why the tweet was problematic:
What’s most problematic about the tweet comparing Taylor Swift’s vagina to a sandwich (if we’re being anatomically correct, we’d wager that Mayers meant vulva, not vagina), is that this isn’t just objectification, it’s slut-shaming.
Women do not exist to be consumed and judged for our decisions, sexual or otherwise. We are people, capable of feelings and desires and emotions. And, yes, some of those feelings and desires and emotions may pertain to love and sex.
Again: What Taylor Swift—or any woman—wants to do with her body and her love life is no one’s business but her own.
Along with several of my coworkers, I’ve been quietly watching Meyers, whose profile reads “Louisiana. Wife, mother, Christian. I love the beach. With #God all things are possible. I am a believer in the positivity of the Lord GUATEMALAN. #Trump 2016,” shout absurdities into the dead net air for several weeks. Her Twitter account’s juxtaposition of over-the-top racism and misogyny coupled with the hilariously banal struck the Jezebel staff as possible performance art—maybe a troll of trolls.
By performing equally over-the-top outrage in response to the ham sandwich tweet, publications like the Huffington Post had embarrassed themselves, we concluded. Sure, some of her tweets were hateful garbage, but it read like hateful garbage intended to show how hateful others were. The news had been played by it own offense hair-trigger.
I set out to contact Mayers a few days ago, deciding to make it my mission to teach the internet how to take a joke for once. She didn’t respond to my requests for a phone call, but eventually agreed to speak via Twitter direct message.
My questions are in bold.
can you tell me a little bit about yourself?
Well I’m 44. I live in baton rouge obviously. Married 19 years with 3 daughters. My youngest turned 12 a month ago. I stay at home. My husband supports us all.
Go to Monday evening bible study in addition to Sunday
why did you decide to get a Twitter account?
I needed an outlet. I made it well over a year ago but I was never really vocal until my testimony started to catch on.
And my husband said that I could have one
what do you mean by “testimony”?
Testifying my beliefs in God and having such an intense reaction. Whether good or bad it’s inspiring discussion
what church do you belong to?
Broadmoor Methodist
when you tweet are you trying to be funny?
Not always. I think people take what I say too literally
Or perhaps the way I word things. I’m not sure
I think it’s probably because your tone is so deadpan. do you agree?
Probably but that’s just how I am
how did you think to compare a vagina to a ham sandwich?
Well it was meant as a visual aid. That’s what I mean by people taking it too literally. As if I have my daughters stand over me so I can examine them. It’s ridiculous.
It merely represents promiscuity in comparison to the puritan ways of Jesus the way he intends it to be.
I personally have trouble figuring out your tone because some of your tweets are so funny, and some are just racist.
I don’t think I’m racist. I speak truth. If it happens to coincide with a particular race then so be it.
what about when you call black peoples “apes?”
or [say] black people are lazy
that seems like the definition of racism to me
It’s true
A fact is a fact
what do you hope to achieve with your Twitter?
To enlighten people
Make them spiritual
Return America to the way it was
For this first segment of the conversation, I had held out hope that any minute now, Mayers would take off her troll mask for just a second to wink at me or give me some sort of indication that we were on the same side. But her unflashy defense of her outlandishly racist tweets made me question the entire premise—was I just having a patient conversation with a monster?
A Fusion reporter had also looked into whether or not Mayers, a “horribly offensive, white-supremacist, Trump-supporting, Christian housewife” is a hoax. They found no evidence to support her existence: