Top Tweets of 2014 as Decided by the People that Wrote Them

 *feature image via Shutterstock

If you didn’t know, the end of the year is a terrible time for most people in comedy. Basically you sit around reading best of lists with other people on them and then eat more pie. Off of this disappointment, I made a list of my own tweets (shout to myself, @bishilarious) because if no one else will appreciate me, I will. And following THAT, I thought it would be fun to give others the same opportunity to shower themselves in love by picking their favorite tweet of the year by them and tell us why they like it. It’s not necessarily the funniest or the best or the most popular; it’s just tweets from this year that they loved for one reason or the other.

Jasika Nicole

DIYer PB consumer social justice advocate furniture maker knitter sewer 4merly Astrid of FRINGE currently Kim of SCANDAL InternDana of WTNV proud lady lover hi

This tweet succinctly describes my experience in LA after moving here a couple of years ago: 1. Whore myself out at auditions 2. Knit the resulting pain away 3. Seek additional solace with my wife. Crafting has somehow become a weird amalgamation of everything I like and dislike about my life here on the west coast, so using my DIY skills as professional currency seems like the most awesome casting couch experience I could hope for.

Gilli Nissim

I like to have fun at all costs and hope to taste every flavor this world has to offer. Dogs are great. So are puppies. Performer at UCB. Writer at Defy Media.

This year, I accepted and quit the best job I’ve ever had to date, and felt very strange the whole time in-between being an official full-time writer, but at a corporate-ish place. When I posted this someone very nice told me to my face that they turned on an alert to see my tweets and it made me feel way too good. Wow, that’s my real answer. I should have just said, “Because I love myself and I like hearing about when other people do too.”

WomanAgainstFeminism

lol feminsim no thanks

I wanted to pick this one because i refuse to let femisists get away with destroying all men on earth! And leave our alphabet alone!

Erin McGown

Laugher. Writer. Crazyperson. The taller half of Erin & MeLissa.

I like this tweet because it’s 100% real and my roommate is still flaunting it around.

Lauren Morelli

Two separate people have referred to me as the white Rihanna. I also write for Orange Is The New Black.

I went to this movie screening with a super cool (i.e. elitist) Q&A afterwards, during which a very famous author said he loved the movie because it wasn’t earnest. I felt more rage in that moment than I do about most things. So I did a very productive thing: I tweeted about it. I think earnestness is important. I’m tired of sarcasm. I’m tired of being afraid to honestly express my feelings without having to undercut them with a joke. See? Not undercutting. Even though I want to.

Stevie Nelson

actor. painter. photographer. dachshund enthusiast. haiku writer. violinist.

This is hands down my favorite tweet of 2014. It cuts straight to the point and speaks to those of us who’ve done this before. When I woke up the next morning, I forgot that I tweeted this and had a moment of wondering if my drunken instincts are way more spot on than when I’m sober.

Mary Kobayashi

[Likes]: salt, secrets [Dislikes]: headlights, decisions

I try to remind myself to not let insignificant or even relatively significant fears get in the way of what I really want to do, say, and who I want to be. It’s something I struggle with and as dumb and tech-obsessed as this will sound, whenever some random person retweets this and it shows up in my interactions, which happens about weekly, I remember to look at the bigger picture. Happy New Year, everyone who’s reading this, and remember to live in a fearless, ridiculously bold way that would make your older self proud.

Ariel Dumas

Writer at The Colbert Report. Well, ‘wroter.’

It makes me laugh and laugh. Because I love the idea of there being ONE annoying person who constantly asks people to ask compromising questions for her. Also my life’s work is to create more female characters who are flawed, gross, funny and relatable. In other words, actual people. Because characters like these are still in the minority. On the bright side, it means we are currently sitting on these huge, untapped reserves of comedy GOLD.

Emily Heller

Comedian (Conan, @midnight); TV writer; Lindsay on @GroundFloorTBS; celebrity tarot faker; Baby Geniuses podcaster; me & @unclenatie run Suck My Dick New Yorker

First let me say that this was a VERY difficult choice because there were many brilliant tweets I did about sitting on George Clooney’s face. But this tweet is sort of my ideal-self coming out — grateful & chillin. Plus people need to know that Daria is streaming on Hulu plus.

Jazmine Hughes

contributing editor at @thehairpin. mean and impressive.

This is a sleeper tweet, about a Beach Boys song. I think it’s funny because a) it is, and b) because I’m a 23-year-old black Brooklynite who tweets mostly about pizza and dicks, so it was probably jarring to find out that I love the Beach Boys. Subverting expectations!!! It’s a pretty nerdy and allusive joke — you won’t get it unless you’re familiar with Pet Sounds, which… why aren’t you familiar with Pet Sounds, what is wrong with you — which I think is the best kind of humor. It’s one thing to get a joke, but it’s another to feel like you’re in on the joke and no one else is, and, judging by that RT count, not many people were. I think that esotericism results in both familiarity and faves, which is all I’m here for.

Lane Moore

Stand-Up Comedian/Writer (The Onion, McSweeney’s), Sex & Relationships Editor @Cosmopolitan.com, Creator of Tinder LIVE! with Lane Moore

https://twitter.com/hellolanemoore/status/546841377355862017

I’d just had my heart broken by someone I really liked and I just felt really burnt out from that. I’ve always been obsessed with movies and in movies, every time someone breaks your heart in this ruthless, cartoonish way, your perfect person shows up literally 30 seconds later because aww your shoe got stuck in a street grate and aww they keep a spare pair of shoes in your size in their briefcase. And they also give you a latte and possibly a boat or something. It’s my favorite tweet of the year because so many people related to it, which means other people are also sick of wading through assholes to find someone they can just eat cookies with and love forever because dating is exhausting.

Stephanie Mickus

writer, MacArthur genius grant recipient, used to do Whip-Its with your ex-bf

I like this one a lot so let’s call that my favorite. I like writing tweets that remind people of important issues e.g. to not slut shame but then taking it farther by exhibiting behavior or choosing language that challenges them to not do that very thing by the end of the tweet.

Claudia Cogan

funny but not insurance commercial funny

I picked this tweet because when I finally realized this, everything about my life made sense.

Pilot Viruet

MEN NEED NOT @ REPLY. television editor @flavorwire, writer @theavclub, shitbag punk teenager everywhere else.

https://twitter.com/pilotbacon/status/541475570933301248

2014 was the year that I got more comfortable tweeting about real stuff on Twitter — I’ve been extremely vocal about race and police brutality, for obvious reasons — so I’m sure there are plenty of more poignant tweets I could have picked. But instead my favorite tweet features one of the lamest jokes I’ve ever made. Most of 2014 was so exhaustingly devastating that I needed to cling to any sort of levity, even if it’s just a dumb joke about a sloth documentary (which was a really good documentary, for the record.)

Bec

‘person’

I chose this tweet mainly because i think it is funny, but also because we have been conditioned into not discussing menstruation openly, and into feeling that making jokes about it is hacky. Well fuck that. If men got periods we would never hear the end of it.

Liza Dye

Actress + Comedian featured in NYTimes. UCB. Low Budget Sketch Show (Season 1) Also, I was hit by a subway train.

I was gonna go with something funny but then I remembered I also almost died this year so this is mine.

Megan Neuringer

writer, actor, comedian with explosive taste and exquisite diarrhea.

I spent most of 2014 in LA which means I spent most of 2014 in a car & it’s hard not to feel defeated & helpless stuck in traffic but I put a nice dry/sarcastic/positive spin on the experience. It’s also little bit absurd, which is fun.

Erin Whitehead

Writer, actor, improviser. UCB person. This IS my backup career; I wanted to be a horse.

I like this because while it does expose a real fear of mine (that my friends feel sorry for me or think I’m pathetic) that aspect is somewhat overridden by the weirdness of me imagining my friends having pillow talk and making love. Nonsense plus truth. You’re welcome.

DeAnne Smith

Comedian. Queer. Feminist. Elf. My mom’s getting good at Google which scares me.

I think it speaks for itself.

Amy Aniobi

tv writer (hbo’s silicon valley, nbc’s michael j fox show, the internet’s lisa and amy, the slutty years, and AWKWARD BLACK GIRL)

There are two things I like about this tweet. One, a random guy tried to compliment me in a non-lecherous way, which is a win for society. And two, I answered in a totally transparent way that nullified any mutual attraction his compliment might have inspired. I learned there’s such a thing as being too honest (and as the year went on, I maybe got a tiny bit better at “flirting.”)

Post your own favorite tweet in the comments and why!

*This list is mostly people that follow me (because I can DM them) and 100% people that responded to my request.

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Brittani

Brittani Nichols is a Los Angeles based comedy person. When she's not tweeting about white people or watching television, she's probably eating pizza. Actually, she's probably doing all three of those things concurrently and when she's not doing THAT, she's sleeping. Brittani also went to Yale and feels weird about mentioning it but wants you to know.

Brittani has written 328 articles for us.

27 Comments

  3. Wow, I was not expecting this to be one of my favourite Autostraddle posts this month/year but it totally was!

    I’m not on twitter or connected / hooked into the comedy scene, so it was great to get a slice of the intersection of those parts of social media and popular culture. Most ‘top ten’ or whatever lists of anything will come with commentary, which is usually interesting and enjoyable to read, but if I had to read a paragraph about each tweet by someone who didn’t write the tweet, or the tweets were presented without context, it would be boring and/or confusing I think. This idea is brilliant though, and facilitated so many neat snapshots of and small windows into the thoughts, lives, and perspectives of these rad people. Thank you, Brittani, this was brilliant, as you yourself continue to B! (if you’ll excuse my sad pun)

    Also if this was a monthly feature (with the same people as contributed there tweets / reasoning here, or entirely different people, or somewhere in between), I would eat it up like ice cream on pie.

    <3 ds

  4. Am I the only one (besides Brittani…) who is obsessed with their own twitter?

    my current favorite twit on my twitter:

    Shirt idea: Not lesbian as in w4w but queer as in ftm4mtf4m4w— Anna Bongiovanni (@dumb_) December 29, 2014

  5. this is brilliant and wonderful thank you brittani

    i also want to commend your choice of feature image, which i intitially thought was a fancy lady double-fisting glasses of whiskey

  8. basically everything @brocklesnitch says is hilarious/brilliant/both. hands down my favourite person on twitter.

  12. Brittani, I said this already when I saw it in an earlier thread, but your unappreciated tweets are genius. And everyone else on here is brilliant too. Seriously, this made my evening.
    Also, I’ve been inspired to actually get a twitter account now.

  15. “My head is just a periscope for my stomach” is so, so real – but would be even real-er if it had “and my loins” at the end.

  17. I love this concept so much and this article was such a joy can you pls do this like once a month??

  18. I’m actually quite disappointed by this. Most of the posts are quite hilarious, but a.) the idea of a twitter handle called “Woman Against Feminism” and b.) showing a tweet reinforcing the (extremely wrong) stereotype that feminists want to kill men? Feminism is the belief that gender should not play a role in how you live your life, and what choices you are given. It has nothing to do with hating men. Sure, there are some feminists out there that do, but there are also a whole lot of misogynists out there that hate women. Or serial killers that hate people. But if a serial killer is in a book club that last time I checked we don’t condemn everyone in book clubs ever.

    It’s *extremely* harmful to further this misconception, and I’m quite sad that Autostraddle would have a hand in doing so. This kind of misconception keeps both women and men from identifying as feminists, and therefore making it much harder for them to support the rights of all genders.

    I normally don’t take the effort to comment but I view this as a truly serious oversight.

    • This opinion is valid and I definitely agree that the “kill men” stereotype can be very harmful to feminism, however I am quite sure that Women Against Feminism on Twitter is meant to be a satire exposing the untrue negative stereotypes the world at large bequeaths feminism so we can laugh at how ridiculous they are and think more deeply about stereotyping in the first place.

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