This is TMI Takes, part of a series of posts where I talk about memes out of the 'character' of ACS. More information can be found here.
Terry is... complicated. Just as he was created from two memes, he has created two very strong, sort of opposite opinions from me, two opinions that cannot be separated from each other. He is objectively my worst meme, but also the one I am the most proud of, and I believe is the best 'plotline' that ACS has gone through. First the good, then the bad. I'll talk about the behind the scenes planning and execution, and then get into the politics.
When I posted that tweet about 'taking a break', I had already made a plan for the next few weeks. I knew that I wanted to actually take a break from Twitter for a bit, while also providing more content, a new storyline, and a creative way to implement the then-recent Scheduled Tweets. Most, if not all, of the tweets after the 'break', but before the reveal, were written ahead of time; that's why none of them are in a thread. I wrote around a dozen, scheduled at random (and sometimes suspicious) times, and left Twitter for a few weeks. It was nice... but I wanted to do more.
Thinking back to my first failed attempt at a 'twitter takeover', and bolstered by my recent successful takeover, I started by posting tweets that used my memes in a... slightly wrong way, usually through misspelling hashtags and just stating the name of a meme rather than doing anything with it. I also took the only good part of the Alien Dots takeover, the daily degradation of the banner art and profile pic, and through that, I completed my plan for the takeover: a malevolent figure that was operating in secret, gathering up power for months, until it finally unleashed its forces. The first Villain of ACS. Since I'm operating a meme twitter, it was obvious to me that the person in charge of the takeover would be not just a previous meme... but a bad meme. A meme that, through its hatred of all memes that weren't them, with spite and strength gathered through my continuous hatred of it, made it rise to power via tyranny and violent extremism.
...Yes, I'm getting to that topic. Behind the scenes comes first, be patient.
Terry was a good choice for the meme, since I had a scapegoat that's comically 'evil' (Cereal), and a scapegoat revealed to be 'good' (Skiss); it was time for a scapegoat revealed to be 'evil'. I was originally going to use the 🦷 emoji as its appropriated symbol, but I was worried it would be too... close to reality (again, more on that later). What emoji could I use that was both underrused and completely unrelated to any real-life performers of bad faith?
And then I saw the tumbler glass 🥃 . And an opportunity arose to make Terry not just one bad meme... but two.
I personally think the takeover is one of the greatest things I've done with my account since the Tweetpile. It was carefully planned, well-structured, and most importantly, was never too fast or too slow in its pacing. One of the things I often struggle with on ACS is overexplaining and repeating jokes (one of the reasons why ACS isn't very funny, aside from the obvious reasons). I was so tempted to speed through the tail end of the takeover just so I could get to the reveal, but I held back, only revealing it on this site. The Geist mosaic was crossed out, all the memes had (RIP) added to their names, and the quoted tweet was one where I derided Terry. Eventually, I brought up the site change on ACS, but by that time, the reveal was only a few hours away. And after that, an eight day break: just past a week, and enough to possibly get people nervous that this would be a permanent thing. That I was really ending ACS. I know I'm doing some nasty humblebragging, but I really am proud of every part of the Terry "Tequila Joe" Takeover.
...I also wish it didn't have to exist. Let's get into it.
Terry "Tequila Joe" is a pretty blatant reference to the rise of far-right groups. That's mostly through the soapbox of an ending to his arc, but it's also peppered in throughout it; it was retconned that he started with the Fluttergarble arc (something that's somehow even more soapboxy in talking about the far-right...), uses appropriated emojis, continually speaks of "WE" and "US" but always as a collective ruled over by one man, and in probably the most direct comparison, despises ACS's they/them pronoun. I even wanted to use a white tooth emoji to really make it obvious, but again, too close to reality. That said, there are some previous tweets under Tequila Joe's name that are extreme left, not right, since as he stated, I get vocally left when drunk, and Tequila Joe was first created during a drunken episode (a #despacito, if you will). I had thought about referencing this, with ACS despairing that he thought Terry was "on my side", but I didn't want this to be strictly about politics. And the issue I wanted to cover was not about politics: it's about what to do with absolute evil. How do you deal with violent extremism? Is there even a way to, without going down a similar path? The whole, "he who fights monsters" thing, written by a man whose words were then twisted by his own kin into mantras for the most destructive and evil regime of the 20th century.
But this is fiction, so we need a happy ending, even if it's bittersweet. Skiss was always going to 'save the day', a higher authority that comes down and punishes evil while rewarding good. A rather literal deus ex machina, when I think about it. But I did not want the account to be left unscathed, like it did with the last tyrannical regime, Yummy. I wanted Terry "Tequila Joe" to have a lasting impact on ACS, a smear on its history not dissimilar to my old GhostPolitics days, but intended, this time. In the end, ACS learns the identities of two memes with incredible power: one that uses it for '''good'''... and one that uses it for evil. And through this knowledge, ACS continues on, shaken, but still standing.
...In fact, there's more things I have planned for Terry. An arc that I might start next year, if I'm still inclined. Terry "Tequila Joe" is gone, and will never come back. But what do we do with his corpse?
Through the final bits of planning the Terry Takeover, as Terry got more and more malicious, I realised that there's one part of his arc that is painfully true to life. Terry was denounced and his alleged army was disassembled... and then his head was placed on my banner, along with the Yummy Regime. Two tyrannical dictators, side by side, immortalized at the top of ACS. Almost... in admiration. Like a statue.
Conversely, even a few months after the Terry Takeover, I was still kinda nervous about him, as silly as that sounds. I didn't want to post tweets in all caps or with wonky formatting, in the fear that it'd be read as coming from Terry. I was so nervous about 'invoking his name' that I posted an in-character disclaimer for the next takeover, the completely harmless Bone Guy, and even considered stopping his takeover arc. An arc that ended with me running out of steam, shelving several things I had planned for October, and culminating with me stepping away from ACS, and Twitter, for two months. All this... over a fucking meme.
So I'm caught between two extremes: acknowledging evil by glorifying it, and denouncing evil by living in self-imposed fear of saying the 'wrong thing'. How do we address evil? How do we compartmentalize and move on from it? And like I asked before... is there even a way?
I don't know the answer, partly because it's still being written in real time. I created the Terry Takeover in August of 2020, when the United States was in disarray through both deepset discrimination and a relatively recent surge of malicious power. I'm writing this on January 6, 2021, when the United States are once more in disarray, spearheaded by malicious power that brought actions to their epithets when it was clear they were losing. On ACS, hatred and evil were vanquished by a powerful government agent. In real life, hatred and evil were cultivated and actively encouraged by them.
I hope my stupid little twitter story arc affected you all as much as it continues to affect me. Be strong, be safe, and above all, Don't Overthink Kindness.