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Today we are going to talk about the phenomena of the "self own" and we're going to do it using Tomi Lahren as an example.
A self-own happens when a person accidentally points out their own wrongness, typically in an attempt to defend their stance. Donald Trump Jr was the king of the self-own for a little while there; often complaining about nepotism and the unfair benefits Hunter Biden would get if Joe Biden became President ... while literally being the son of the President and reaping each of the potential benefits he complained about.
For today's example, however, we turn to another of 45's favorite people, Tomi Lahren. She went on a pro-America Twitter rant that didn't actually come across very pro-America at the end of it.
Take a look:
There's also this video.
So that's three tweets (out of so many more) and a video that essentially accuse anyone critical of the United States of not loving the country and encouraging people who are not happy with their government to leave and move to another country.
Something Lahren repeatedly criticized immigrants to America of doing. Also according to Lahren, if immigrants didn't like their own country they should have stayed there and fixed it.
So which is it?
Lahren's rant, intended to inspire passion about America, instead ended up showcasing her hypocrisy. It was spectacular self-own success, and Twitter wasn't afraid to point that out.
Perhaps nobody framed it quite as succinctly as this person, though.
If you've seen Mean Girls, you immediately get the reference. Regina George is a masterful manipulator who has a way of talking people into a proverbial corner, or rather letting people talk themselves there and then casually pointing it out.
In the scene referenced above, Regina complimented another character, who responded positively. She then flipped that positive response back at the person in a scene that has since become the meme we all know and love.
Regina is awful, petty, and manipulative, but this moment in the film isn't necessarily just about Regina being terrible. It's also about catching it when someone communicates something they maybe didn't intend to. It's about pointing out the subtext.
And WOW did Lahren have some serious subtext happening.
The Regina George tweet started people in on her rant big time.
As of yet, Lahren has not responded directly. Instead, she moved on to ranting about how "voting by mail is fraud by mail" which it legally, actually and factually is not... but that's a topic for a whole other article.