Dan Harmon’s Angry, Abusive Twitter Rant Makes Him Seem Deeply Unhappy

By Shane Ryan  |  October 21, 2015 | 12:25pm
Photo by Valerie Macon/Getty Comedy News Dan Harmon
Dan Harmon’s Angry, Abusive Twitter Rant Makes Him Seem Deeply Unhappy

File this one under “comedy??”

First off, none of this is safe for work in any way—if you scroll down, you will be reading some language. Second off, if you worship Dan Harmon, creator of Community and Rick and Morty, you might want to stop here, because even your fellow Harmon-worshippersthink it makes him look really small.

The story here is that Harmon was on a plane yesterday, possibly drunk, and someone insulted him on Twitter. This happens to famous people all the time. It even happens to non-famous people all the time. Twitter is essentially a cauldron of self-promotion, links, and insults, and there is no escape. Dan Harmon has surely been insulted on Twitter before—it’s part of the shitty bargain. This time, though, something snapped, and he caved to a dark desire to “inflict genuine pain.”

Unfortunately, his nemesis has protected all his/her tweets, so we can’t see the original spark, but Harmon’s responses tell us plenty all by themselves.

(UPDATE: From the comments, here’s the unforgivable, incendiary tweet that set Harmon off: “Uhhh ok? I guess you’re drunker than expected. That’s ok. But this isn’t that great of an idea?”)

Here’s a sampling:

It goes on from there, and you can revisit the whole debacle at Harmon’s Twitter feed. The interesting thing here is that his victim’s Twitter handle was “Bird Person,” which is a Rick and Morty character, so he’s at least nominally a Harmon fan.

The gist of Harmon’s insults, as you see above (and which went on interminably), is that because he’s famous, the hatred he piles on this Twitter user will be the most attention said Twitter user ever gets—i.e. the highlight of his life. This, of course, is based on the fundamentally Hollywood-American belief that a human being’s value derives chiefly from whatever fame he’s able to muster in this life. That seems to the milieu Harmon is most comfortable inhabiting…for better or worse. (Hint: Worse.)

There are also a few self-aggrandizing threats, such as:

Followed by a re-iteration of the idea that the worst thing a human being can be is “not famous”:

Followed by a return to generic insults:

Followed by insulting other Twitter users who took him to task:

And so on. Late last night, now sober, he took stock:

So…what the hell just happened? Obviously we witnessed an incredible explosion of insecurity, narcissism, and anger from a man who is both creatively talented and insanely thin-skinned. More than anything, my takeaway is that Dan Harmon is deeply unhappy. I love a good trolling, but this flew beyond that category within like, three tweets. Hopefully this is a passing moment of counterproductive chest-thumping for Harmon, and not the start of an emotional breakdown that ends with him smashing into walls in an asylum.

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