Social media brings us all together for the big moments in life, like elections and the Oscars and the Super Bowl, and sometimes it’s where history plays out.
But for the most part, it’s a way to stay in touch with your old high school and college friends and much of the time it still has that high school feel to it.
You have to admit, this exchange between the septuagenarian President of the United States and a teenaged climate activist does feel high school-ish.
It all started back in 2019.
Remember the heyday when we didn’t all have to worry about a deadly virus? Good times, right?
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Well, towards the end of the year, Time decided that teen climate activist Greta Thunberg — who had popularized the idea of students striking to demand action on climate change and drew millions of people to climate rallies around the globe — deserved its coveted Person of the Year designation.
One person who felt Thunberg was not deserving of that honor was President Donald Trump.
Rather than congratulating the teen on her honor, the president turned to Twitter.
Recalling Thunberg’s angry “How dare you” outburst at the United Nations, President Trump tweeted “So ridiculous. Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill!”
And at the time, Thunberg didn’t seem to give the president’s words much thought.
She didn’t release a public comment on the then-73-year-old president’s tweet, but she did change her Twitter bio to read “A teenager working on her anger management problem. Currently chilling and watching a good old fashioned movie with a friend.”
That seemed to be as far as that exchange went. But Greta remembers.
And her memory reached back to that late 2019 exchange when President Trump’s anger seemed to get the best of him on Twitter on November 5, two days after the presidential election.
With ballots still being counted and Trump watching as the count increasingly favored his opponent, former VP Joe Biden, the president sent out several tweets in all caps, including “STOP THE COUNT!”
That’s when Greta pounced, calling back to the president’s own words the previous year.
There has been no official reply to Thunberg’s tweet so far.
Trump’s Twitter bio remains the same, simply “45th President of the United States of America.”
But Thunberg’s tweet has been liked at least 1.6 million times so far, compared to just 163,000 likes for President Trump’s original tweet to Thunberg, for what that’s worth.
