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More than just epic clapbacks, Stormy Daniels’s Twitter dismissals help explain how she’s become so unstoppable–and how you can be too.

What We Can Learn From Stormy Daniels’s Annihilation Of Twitter Trolls

[Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images]

BY Joe Berkowitz3 minute read

On Friday morning, Stormy Daniels came for Roseanne Barr with an NSFW fierceness that sent mouths agape across the Twittersphere.

Vulgar though the retort may be, it offers a glimpse into what has kept Stormy’s story in the spotlight for all of 2018, despite the daily churn of disaster that is the trademark of the Trump era. Stormy Daniels is–there’s really no other way to say it–habitually un-fuckwithable. She can’t be intimidated. She can’t be made a fool of. She can’t be stopped.

The woman born Stephanie Clifford made waves in March with a 60 Minutes interview that left the leader of the free world looking like an inept, horny schoolboy who was born rich and deprived of nothing. However embarrassing an extramarital affair with an adult film star might have seemed had it come out in October 2016, the graphic description of said affair that’s come to light in the turmoil over Daniels’s hush money payment is exponentially worse. No matter how the story ends up shaking out, if there’s a winner between Trump and Daniels, it is unquestionably Daniels.

As many people tuned in to see her decimate Trump’s self-mythology on 60 Minutes, millions more are watching Daniels perform similar savagery on a daily basis on Twitter. Roseanne Barr isn’t the first trolling presence who has found her- or himself (usually “him-“) in Daniels’s merciless crosshairs. Looking back through quote-tweets and replies reveals her penchant for putting chumps in their place. More than just epic clapbacks, these Twitter dismissals are also instructive.

Daniels’s tweets reveal the following philosophies, which could be handy for anyone who has to deal with assholes. In other words, all of us.

Never let anyone take control of your narrative with their interpretation.

Never feel like your job description entails being likable.

Always have a sense of humor about yourself.

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Be proud of your accomplishments.

Never apologize for who you are.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joe Berkowitz is an opinion columnist at Fast Company. His latest book, American Cheese: An Indulgent Odyssey Through the Artisan Cheese World, is available from Harper Perennial. More


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