It is the mantra of the political moment. A barbaric yawp too hot for twitter to trend. Perhaps best of all: #fuckyouwashington is bipartisan.
Judging by the tweet-a-moment pace, the crude viral anger infects Democrats, Republicans and independents alike. Staffers and pols on the Hill and the White House probably feel the same way. Many in D.C. certainly do(the heat alone is enough to set tempers ablaze).
"To America: 4 million of us who live/work in and around DC (not in politics) won't take #fuckyouwashington personally. We feel u. #p2 #tcot," someone named @DeepVision tweeted Sunday, long after CUNY prof Jeff Jarvis first started the shoutout.
"So I was angry. Watching TV news over dinner — turning my attention from scandals in the UK to those here and frankly welcoming the distraction from the tragedies in Norway — I listened to the latest from Washington about negotiations over the debt ceiling. It pissed me off. I’d had enough. After dinner, I tweeted: 'Hey, Washington assholes, it’s our country, our economy, our money. Stop fucking with it.' It was the pinot talking (sounding more like a zinfandel," he wrote Sunday in his BuzzMachine blog to explain, well, all the buzz reported in Slate and on Storify.
"That’s all I was going to say," Jarvis continued. "I had no grand design on a revolution. I just wanted to get that off my chest. That’s what Twitter is for: offloading chests. Some people responded and retweeted, which pushed me to keep going, suggesting a chant: 'FUCK YOU WASHINGTON.' Then the mellifluously monikered tweeter @boogerpussy suggested: '.@jeffjarvis Hashtag it: #FUCKYOUWASHINGTON.' Damn, I was ashamed I hadn’t done that. So I did."
"And then it exploded as I never could have predicted. I egged it on for awhile, suggesting that our goal should be to make #fuckyouwashington a trending topic, though as some tweeters quickly pointed out, Twitter censors moderates topics. Soon enough, though, Trendistic showed us gaining in Twitter share and Trendsmap showed us trending in cities and then in the nation."
Read the whole blog and click on the map. The nation is screaming it. And so are many around the world. Also, there's a way to view the the phrase streaming.
Said @andrewbrust earlier this evening: "I would open my window and scream it, but that would let the air conditioning out. So I'll stick with hashtags. #fuckyouwashington."
This is the anger of the grassroots, or perhaps the twittering of those Leaves of Grass from another volatile time in America when Whitman wrote: "I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric YAWP over the roofs of the world."
Too bad he didn't have Twitter.
Thanks for covering our rage. Corporate media often misses it.
Posted by: jeanette borges | July 24, 2011 at 09:50 PM
Here's my daily bite me tweet:
Grassroots: F&%k you washington
Washington: Bite me
Sorry, mom told me to try not to say that word.
Posted by: Janemiami | July 24, 2011 at 10:04 PM
That Whitman quote is ... inspired, Marc, thank you.
Posted by: Crowdsourcing | July 24, 2011 at 10:14 PM
And the Facebook page has started: https://www.facebook.com/pages/fuckyouwashington/210755525642658
Posted by: Bob Smith | July 24, 2011 at 11:40 PM
O Captain, my captain!
Oh wait, there ain't no captain on the ship of state--at least not one who knows what to do and how to get it done.
Posted by: whasup | July 25, 2011 at 04:12 AM
WOW! When did this newspaper become vulgar? Are children reading this? You should be ashamed of yourselves.
Posted by: VULGARITY to sell newspapers | July 25, 2011 at 08:51 AM
The children already know this word. They learn it at school and through their ghetto music. Wake up.
Posted by: whasup | July 25, 2011 at 09:58 AM
This is what reporting in the Miami Herald has come to. Not only is it vulgar but it doesn't make much sense.
I'm positive blogger was drunk/high when it was written.
Posted by: Weird Article | July 25, 2011 at 10:14 AM
#fuckyou at #suckmydickwashington and #eatmyshit congressman.
How is this news.
Posted by: #fuckyou | July 25, 2011 at 11:25 AM