While You Were Offline: One Trump Press Conference to Rule Them All

Here's the thing about the internet: One minute it's a rising tide of overwhelming information that no sane person could ever fully consume. The next: Puppies! The internet is also somewhere that information can get lost in the never-ending churn, which is why, every week, it's good to consider some of the things you might have missed over the past seven days. We've placed some of those important things below. You're welcome.

What Happened: What to do when there are reports that you might maybe have committed treason? Look! Over there!
Where It Blew Up: Twitter, media reports
What Really Happened: As more reports circulated that intelligence agencies believe President Trump's campaign talked to Russian intelligence during last year's election, many wondered how Trump himself would respond. Would he ignore the issue altogether? Deny it? Some third, unimaginable option?

Oh, of course; he'd attack the leaks but ignore their content.

Initially, people on Twitter responded sincerely, and angrily, to this sleight of hand:

But then, people realized that perhaps President Trump was onto something—and they started looking for the real scandal:

Perhaps unsurprisingly, that wasn't even the first Star Wars reference:

Never underestimate the internet's ability to make something about Star Wars. Lest we forget, this wasn't actually about Star Wars. There was something to see here. (Dammit. Sorry.)

that this whole thing is about the idea that we were actually talking about the possibility that the Trump campaign was actively colluding with a foreign power out to destabilize U.S. democracy, someone thought to remind us that distraction techniques don't really work on anyone outside of an easily distracted social media:

The Takeaway: Of course, the real scandal is...

(Context for the above tweet can be found here.)

What Happened: President Trump gave a press conference on Thursday. Some of his answers were… noteworthy.
Where It Blew Up: Twitter, media reports
What Really Happened: After the media noticed that President Trump was avoiding questions from anyone other than right-wing outlets during public appearances, the leader of the free world conducted an impromptu press conference that lasted a stunning hour and 17 minutes on Thursday. How did it go?

Oh. Of particular interest to Twitter was Trump's denial that things are pretty chaotic over at the White House these days.

A fine-tuned machine? In the week where his pick for Secretary of Labor dropped out and National Security Advisor resigned this all begs one question: Really?

While the media struggled to parse that particular statement, Twitter did what it does best: sarcasm.

The Takeaway: This is all weirdly reminiscent of something, but what?

Oh, that's it.

What Happened: Want to know how to get things done? First, you have to ask a powerful person a simple question to see if they'll embarrass themselves on the national stage.
Where It Blew Up: Twitter, media reports
What Really Happened: To figure out what's going on here, you need to go back to one specific moment from President Trump's press conference.

Yes, that's right; the moment where the president's smart-assery made him sound pretty racist. But maybe no one noticed? After all, there was a lot of other stuff happening during that press conference. It's possible that part could have escaped notice.

Nope. But that's just Twitter. Surely the mainstream media didn't… Oh, wait, never mind, apparently they noticed too. Oops.

Knowing that there's one place in particular where President Trump likes to spend time, the Congressional Black Caucus chose to respond via Twitter—and remind him that they'd already asked for a meeting, more than a month earlier:

Again, oops. Still, at least some people were happy that the exchange was happening at all:

The Takeaway: In the end, all's well that ends with a tentatively planned meeting.

What Happened: Oh, and you thought the Betsy DeVos story ended last week when she was confirmed as education secretary? You didn't realize that things would get so much worse when cartoonists got involved.
Where It Blew Up: Twitter, media reports
What Really Happened: The background you really need to know for this is that, following her confirmation, protestors blocked DeVos' entry into a DC public school last week, forcing her to temporarily leave the area. (She later visited the school, entering the location via an alternate route.) A few days later, this happened:

For those thinking, "Wait, that looks kind of familiar," that's the point; cartoonist Glenn McCoy's cartoon "Trying to trash Betsy DeVos" was a recreation of Norman Rockwell's iconic 1964 painting "The Problem We All Live With," which depicted the real-life Ruby Bridges on her way to an all-white public school in 1960, protected by four US Marshals. Yes, it's a cartoon suggesting that DeVos being Secretary of Education is just like the civil rights movement of the '60s. For real.

Here's a Twitter thread about why that might be, at best, an ill-chosen and insensitive comparison to make, or you could just look at what else Twitter had to say:

The backlash to the cartoon was widely covered by the media, as well.

Cartoonist McCoy addressed the furor in pretty weak terms, saying, "I regret if anyone was offended by my choice of metaphors but my intention was to focus on the protestors being hateful and to open up a dialogue on this point." Whenever someone says, "I'm sorry that you're upset," that's always the most meaningful apology, isn't it?
The Takeaway:

What Happened: Turns out, foreign languages are useful after all, especially when the international titles for a Star Wars movie answer a question fans have been obsessing over for weeks.
Where It Blew Up: Twitter
What Really Happened: So, remember when people freaked out over what Star Wars: The Last Jedi could mean? Was it Rey the eponymous Jedi? Was it Luke? Was it Rey and Luke? The idea that "Jedi" could be plural as well as singular was one raised quickly, but dismissed by many as being not dramatic enough. Well…

The reveal seemed to go down well:

It even ended up making the news. But, wait. Maybe things aren't fully decided just yet…

Wait. Translators could be working off faulty information? Is this all some kind of freaky double bluff by Disney?! Fake news!
The Takeaway: Knowledge is power.