Carrie Fisher will be remembered as a Star Wars heroine, a funny and fearless writer, an advocate for mental health, and a great dog mom. She lived an eventful life, and she shared it with the world. Next to these many contributions, a Twitter account hardly rates as significant—but Carrie Fisher had one, and it was really, really good.
In a world where celebrities are part of the same bubbling social media morass as the rest of us, and fans seem to feel that they’re owed direct access to their heroes, Carrie Fisher didn’t put up with any bullshit. She shitposted on Twitter the same way she lived, authentically and without holding back.
Whether she was trolling the official Star Wars account…
https://twitter.com/prasejeebus/status/813829795377254400
…or reminding everyone what “Slave Leia” really stood for…
That chain only”enslaved”me until I could use the frabjous thing to KILL THAT DROOLING SWOLLEN SUPERTONGUED SLUG&whirl him off into infinity
— Carrie Fisher (@carrieffisher) July 15, 2015
…or just tweeting “Gay” or “flabby buttocks” with no explanation or context,
https://twitter.com/i_deserved_this/status/813815218442600448
flabby buttocks
— Carrie Fisher (@carrieffisher) November 18, 2012
it’s clear that Fisher had more facility with Twitter humor than most people half her age. Than most people of any age, really.
She was also a fan of extreme emoji usage, often spelling out entire words with the symbols. Among eccentric celebrity emoji-ists, only Cher really came close. And if your account and Cher’s are mentioned in the same sentence, you know you’re doing Twitter properly.
Here’s a saying I came up with recently,”Fuck me Twice & cover me in applesauce” 💪🏼ℹ️🎋📧. ℹ✝❓ ℹ give it to you…..ℹ✝💲 ✌🏼0️⃣⛎🌱💲❕
— Carrie Fisher (@carrieffisher) June 18, 2016
ℹ♏️ 💲⛎🅿️🅿️🅾️💲📧d ✝️🅾️ ✝️📧🕒🕒 ✌🏻️🅾️⛎ ✝️🅾️ 🅱️⛎✌🏻️ ♏️✌🏻️ 🅱️🅾️🅾️🎋, 🅱️⛎✝️ ℹ♏️ ♑️🅾️✝️ ®📧🅰️🕒🕒✌🏻️ 🕒ℹ🎋📧 ✝️♓️🅰️✝️❕
— Carrie Fisher (@carrieffisher) November 28, 2016
Her trolling was also extremely sharp. Who could forget the time she jokingly(?) called Donald Trump a cokehead?
I’m an expert & ABSOLUTELY
— Carrie Fisher (@carrieffisher) October 10, 2016
When sexist jerks criticized her for aging during the nearly 40 years between A New Hope and The Force Awakens, she told them to blow her and was hailed as a hero and role model.
Please stop debating about whetherOR not👁aged well.unfortunately it hurts all3 of my feelings.My BODY hasnt aged as well as I have.Blow us👌🏼
— Carrie Fisher (@carrieffisher) December 29, 2015
She did it again when she was accused of being too old to do motion capture for a younger Leia in Rogue One:
“🅿️📧🅾️🅿️🕒📧have🅰g📧D soⓂ️⛎©♓️Ucant even GET THEM 2 DOⓂ️🅾️✝️ℹ🅾️♑️©APTURE”-as ✝️♓️🅾️these folksR disobedientAuditions R held.Gary didnt get©🅰💲✝️ pic.twitter.com/RuEdx1AUIW
— Carrie Fisher (@carrieffisher) December 21, 2016
Truly, this is how you do Twitter. While many other celebrities allow themselves to be baited into public arguments with angry eggs, Fisher always stuck up for herself while giving as few shits as possible about what a bunch of online strangers thought.
How FEWshits do I nothave2give,2getU 2believeTHAT👁COULDNTcare LESSthan the MOREthat I do about-reallyANYTHING at all..@ALL aboutANYTHING@ALL
— Carrie Fisher (@carrieffisher) January 8, 2016
And, as icing on the cake, she also posted heaps of cute pictures of her waggle-tongued French bulldog, Gary.
〰ℹ🕒🕒 ♓️📧 🅱️📧 🅰️✝️ ✝️♓️📧 🅱️🅾️🅾️🎋 💲ℹ⛽️♑️ℹ♑️⛽️❓📚 pic.twitter.com/Q3oIrSh0ei
— Carrie Fisher (@carrieffisher) November 28, 2016
If you tried to write the playbook for celebrities in the age of social media, you’d just end up with a printout of twitter.com/carrieffisher.
Even at its best, Twitter is always going to be kind of dumb. It will never be cool or transcendent, especially when it’s coming from icons who have conquered other, richer forms of media. But at its worst, celebrity Twitter can be godawful and completely undignified. It’s famous and powerful millionaires feuding like children with people they don’t even know, revealing their ignorance, , or otherwise falling short of the heroic images we’ve projected onto them. It’s Donald Trump, someone Fisher frequently tweeted that she couldn’t stand, raising the specter of a nuclear arms race.
Carrie Fisher’s Twitter account didn’t suck, which is a real achievement. It was cool, and weird, and honest. Like her.
And, as we watch hundreds of corporations celebrate her life with cheesy branded tweets (in accordance with the immutable laws of #content), it’s depressing to know that she’s not here to tell them to go fuck themselves.
