What the Fuck Is Going On With Joyce Carol Oates's Keyboard? [Updated]

Joyce Carol Oates, celebrated author and awful tweeter, posted yet another bad tweet. But this time, instead of a question about the women equivalent of “bromances” or searching for the “joyous” side of ISIS, she tweeted something deeply personal, even, dare I say, confessional: she tweeted a photo of her incredibly fucked up keyboard.

The tweet, which I saw with my own eyes, included a photo of her cat next to her keyboard, which was a battered monstrosity. The keys looked like they were buried in quicksand, the corners of the keyboard looked like they were curling in on themselves. It appeared it was shedding… something? A second skin?

Shortly after Joyce Carol Oates posted the tweet, she deleted it, perhaps because she was getting owned in the replies, as one does. Luckily for us, the keyboard photo has been immortalized in several tweets. Thank god!

Jezebel writer Esther Wang suggested the curled up skin might be a keyboard cover. That might be true, but that doesn’t make staring at this photo any easier.

Update, 10:56 A.M.: It seems that Oates has upgraded her computer! As to when it was upgraded is still unclear, but Oates writes that her “new laptop is a miracle of lightness & efficiency; old laptop cumbersome & seems of another era.”