This article originally appeared in the War on Christmas Issue.
Hi. It’s me, Emily, or as you know me on Twitter, @HarryStylesCupcake. As many of you have heard, I’ve been facing significant backlash recently for tweets I made that were apparently not in the “holiday spirit.” “Harry doesn’t even know who you are,” “You should probably open a book at some point in your life,” and “That’s not how you spell ‘I autoerotically asphyxiate myself to Harry every night’ you ignorant shitfaced bitch,” are just a few of the messages of hate I have received. While I have ignored many of these attacks, I would be remiss not to address the person who told me to “get my Fat Albert looking ass off the Internet.” I looked up Fat Albert, and I’m not even black, so that’s probably insensitive to the community.
Even my own mother has asked me to delete my account she is so ashamed. Need I remind you, mother, that your other child was featured on Beyond Scared Straight for beating up a VCR repairman? All of this, however is beside the point. I am not vlogging today to indict others’ actions but rather to take ownership of my own. So here goes: When I wrote “Harry Styles is more important than Nelson Mandela,” I meant that Harry is more important than Nelson Mandela RIGHT NOW because I hadn’t heard about Nelson Mandela doing anything in a long time. Obviously, after I started receiving messages of hate, I looked him up some more, and apparently he helped with apartheid and racism in South Africa and went on to be the president, but I didn’t know that at the time. Now that I am fully informed, I regret what I said, though I still think Harry Styles is more important to me and my friends because we don’t really know or care a lot about South Africa, and it’s easier for us to relate to someone like Harry Styles, who is from a country where they speak English.
I hope my explanation has helped put my tweets in context. I didn’t mean to offend the South Africans. However, I will not apologize for saying “Nelson Mandela can choke and die for all I care.” Apparently, he is already dead, so that tweet was not offensive.
—A. Thomas