Elon Musk’s religious-like dedication to outing himself as an old man completely out of touch with the modern world continues, as he sinisterly giggles to himself after discovering old #StayWoke merchandise in Twitter’s offices.
Twitter’s offices must have reopened after Musk shut it down fearing sabotage, as he’s rifling through the office to get further points from his sycophants. His crosshairs are firmly set on a series of old T-shirts from Jack Dorsey’s reign of the site which simply say “#StayWoke”.
A normal adult man and billionaire who rails against the apparently easily offended has re-ignited the weak sense of humor of his legion of followers with a simple shirt. Incredible! The backstory, which he obviously doesn’t give you, is far from what you may expect on the surface. Those shirts were worn by Dorsey at a Code Conference in 2016, with it coming from a complex time.
In the weeks preceding Dorsey speaking at the event, there were several major current events unfurling in the world. There was the Flint, Michigan water crisis which disproportionately affected Black Americans and took years for any progress to be made on. The European migrant crisis saw potentially 700 refugees die at sea just before the United Kingdom voted to leave the EU. Most importantly, Donald Trump became his surge in the 2016 election.
Most heinous was the death of Freddie Gray by the Baltimore Police over his legal possession of a knife, which resulted in widespread protests and was one of the biggest seeds in Black Lives Matter becoming a major movement worldwide. Gray was murdered by police in a clear case of police brutality.
The idea of wokeness is, theoretically, just stressing that people should be aware of the world around them, with Dorsey wearing it to acknowledge the downtrodden in the world. Musk just throwing the idea out the window feels almost fitting given how he uses Twitter.
Dorsey was far from perfect, and the shirt could be argued as being solely performative, but at least it was an attempt to mean good.
The phrase “stay woke” is believed to have originated in 1938 with Huddie William Ledbetter, better known by the stage name Lead Belly. Later popularized by J. Saunders Redding in a social justice term during the 1940s, it wasn’t until the internet age it became part of the lexicon.
