The Twitter Tea Drama Brought Out Some Real Twee Bullshit

Story: Rishi Sunak had a needlessly performative cup of Yorkshire Tea in an effort to "relate" to the masses online.
Reasonable Take: I fucking hate the Tories.
Brain rot: Sue – a member of the British public who had complaints about this image looking a lot like sponsored advertising – will rue the day she logged on.

This week, in hell, Yorkshire Tea took to Twitter to decry complain that the brand had been falsely accused of sponsoring a tweet from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak.

In a depressing thread, the tea claimed to have spent three days "answering furious accusations and boycott calls", adding that it had been "pretty shocking to see the determination some have had to drag us into a political mudfight" after receiving a torrent of grievances when the privately-educated Tory chancellor from Southampton was pictured alongside a giant packet of their teabags, exclaiming there is "nothing like a good Yorkshire brew".

The tea then posted that they had faced a "rough weekend" of angry comments, before issuing a plea "to anyone about to vent their rage online, even to a company, remember there's a human on the other end of it… try to be kind".

Of course, this plea for kindness in the midst of an escalating mental health crisis was largely undermined by the fact that the incognito social media manager then paved the way for a mass viral pile-on of a real human person called Sue.

Sue, who had initially vented her annoyance that "the last thing I want to do when I'm making a tea is to think about what the Tory, who was blatantly advertising your tea, paid or otherwise, will be doing to continue to grow the rich/poor gap", was met with a riposte from the tea: "Sue, you're shouting at tea. Please do look after yourself and try to be kind to others. We're going to mute you now."

"Sue, you're shouting at tea" instantly became a viral meme on Twitter, with the hashtag #SueYoureShoutingAtTea trending worldwide and a jamboree of articles calling it a "strong contender for quote of 2020", a "comedy" song telling Sue to log off, and the very worst spores of capitalism manifesting products with the quote emblazoned on them. All this coming just after the tea had acknowledged that it was "easier to be on the receiving end" of online wrath "as a brand than as an individual", since there's "more emotional distance" and because they have "a team to support me when it [gets] a bit much".

All I can say is fucking make your mind up, "Yorkshire Tea". Are you a "human" affected by the disparaging tweets about the brand, or a "clap back master" serving scalding tea to the masses in more ways than one? You can't have the penny and the bun!

The tea eventually posted that it didn't want to instigate a Twitter pile-on, and again urged people to be "kind", before stating they were "off for a nice cup of tea and a sit down for a bit". However, their teachings of kindness and gentility weren't extended towards poor Sue, who continued to be berated with vindictive comments as the tea wouldn't dare delete their mocking "PR gold" takedown.

Blueticks and celebrities rejoiced at the "quintessentially British" comeback by the tea to Sue’s comments, and championed it as "the most British thing ever!" Meanwhile, Jacob Rees-Mogg showed his support for fellow cabinet member Rishi Sunak by exclaiming that he, too, has a soft spot for working class things like "crisps", stating: "I can reassure the manufacturers of artisan crisps that they are in no danger, in fact I am a Walker's crisps man or Pringles when I'm feeling extravagant."

This groan-inducing, twee British patter fucking plagues the UK. It does genuinely make me wonder if I live in a detached, parallel Britain to the one I hear so often described. It seems I’m simply condemned to a hellish alternate reality where everyone is an angry dickhead who keeps perpetually voting in the very worse right-wing Tory governments and acting perplexed as to why everything is a piece of shit. Meanwhile, people with studio-shot avatars are on this quaint, peaceful isle where our only discernible traits are bashfulness and being overly apologetic, like we're all some cunts in a Richard Curtis film and not these world renowned unbearable, classist, imperialist knobs.

As is always the case whenever there's a performative viral takedown by a brand, other corporate PR piranhas were ravenously awaiting the chum of Sue's deceased virtual corpse as the "epic" one-liner was celebrated on social media. PG Tips tweeted its "solidaritea" to Yorkshire Tea, saying "DM me if you fancy a cuppa. From one social media manager to another #cuppastogether", and many other multimillion firms pitifully attempted to crowbar a reference into the #YorkshireTeaGate action.

But the most painful attempt to inject some self-relevance to the story was made by West Yorkshire Police, who tweeted: "Just to confirm, shouting at tea is not a crime, but drinking Lancashire tea over Yorkshire tea is a bit of a grey area. #SueYoureShoutingAtTea #WereAllHuman #BeKind", when arguably in a sane, non-capitalist claptrap society they’d be investigating the vitriol aimed at Sue following the Twitter pile-on and not contributing to it.

I distinctly remember the germination process of brands acting like "one of the lads". During the summer of 2015 I innocuously tweeted that I "JUST HAD SOME TOBLERONE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN AGES AND IT WAS FUCKING CLASS". Suddenly, the official Toblerone account appeared in my menshies, responding: "OF COURSE IT WAS! TOBLERONE IS THE BIZ. (Sorry, why are we shouting?)"

Instantly, I knew I hated this paltry encounter. Why the fuck was a confectionery brand under the umbrella of a billion-dollar firm trying to engage in desperate patter with me? I responded by tweeting: "SHUT UP YOU TRIANGLE CUNT. I'LL EAT YOU BUT DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE TELL ME HOW TO SPEAK ON HERE," which promptly got me blocked.

I feel we all need to revert to these halcyon days, when our only interactions with companies were to scold them for their "shit service" or to call them "robbing cunts". We have to stop sending hand clap emojis to conglomerates because of their benign, low-level "I'm human, like you, my friend!" workplace banter before our timelines solely consist of a deluge of unflushable, swirling "corporate clap back" turds and videos of psychopaths making a fusion pizza out of Oreo's and lasagne.

We are in the Year of Our Lord 2020. We really shouldn’t be offering acclaim to corporations who are just attempting to capitalise on this profitable promotion. They certainly aren’t our mates, and they are more than happy to e-crucify your well-meaning mother who is angry about Tory austerity if it provides them even a slither of free marketing.

@MULLET_FAN_NEO