Source: Karen Ducey / Getty
‘s name has been among the top trending topics on social media this week stemming from the news that Elon Musk is buying Twitter for $44 billion. King’s initial response to the social media app’s sale was to claim Musk — the world’s wealthiest person — is making the purchase to bolster the world’s “white power” structure.
Ironically, King posted that sentiment to his Twitter account and his more than 1 million followers. The tweet went viral for all the wrong reasons and managed to resuscitate a colorist-based list of disparaging nicknames mocking the alleged scammer who has been accused of
credible yet unproven claims of financial improprieties.
As a result, on Monday, the term “Martin Luther Cream” was trending on Twitter following King’s viral tweet.
Hours later and into Tuesday morning, King appeared to delete his Twitter account in apparent protest of Musk buying the social media company. That promoted the term “Talcum X” to start trending on Twitter.
“Right-wingers celebrated the news as some kind of ‘stick it to the leftists’ victory,”
Zack Linly wrote for NewsOne.
However, King announced Tuesday morning —
in a tweet — that his Twitter account was still very much intact.
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It seems as though King’s list of nicknames begins trending on social media following every time he is in the news cycle.
That’s what happened in 2020 following Sen. Bernie Sanders’ shellacking by
Joe Biden in the
South Carolina primary. However, King, who at the time was a Sanders campaign surrogate, had an even rougher time when Twitter completely came for his jugular after he accused MSNBC’s
Rachel Maddow of making comments about Sanders that she actually did not say.
Shaun King takes the stage to stump for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) during the 2020 campaign kick-off at Brooklyn College in Brooklyn, New York, on March 2, 2019. | Source: NurPhoto / Getty
King claimed that Maddow reported “that multiple ‘senior officials’ within the Democratic Party are interfering with the primaries to stop” Sanders’ campaign.
“They reported that the party has asked Bloomberg to drop out so that Biden would have an easier time against Bernie,” he continued. Maddow fired back, denying King’s claims. “What? No. I didn’t report any such thing,” she responded.
King then shared a clip of the MSNBC host discussing pressures
Mike Bloomberg’s campaign faced prior to him suspending his campaign, according to sources, which had absolutely nothing to do with King’s accusation.
“The Bloomberg campaign is experiencing intense pressure from multiple sources from inside of the Democratic Party that he needs to quit,” Maddow said in the clip.
Days prior,
King was called out for claiming that
Beto O’Rourke supporters reported contacted him “near tears, saying that his endorsement of @JoeBiden ‘felt like a betrayal’ of all they had worked for with Beto. One said he loathed Biden’s campaign for President. They just couldn’t make it make sense.”
However, a former O’Rourke staffer responded to King, debunking his tweet.
“Former Beto staffer here. I can say with almost complete certainty that none of us would reach out to this guy to speak ill of our old boss,” the staffer wrote.
After Maddow called out King’s fallacies,
Talcum X began trending, referring to King. Black folks quickly began to display their utmost creativity, listing off a series of new nicknames for King, alluding to his habitual storytelling.
“Talcum X has always been my favorite Sh*un King nickname but someone called him
Hueless P. Newton,
Martin Luther Cream &
W.E.B. Defraud and I cant breathe,” one person tweeted.
Another Twitter user said, “Why didn’t I know y’all nicknamed @shaunking Martin Luther cream and Thurgood partial Rolling on the floor laughingRolling on the floor laughingRolling on the floor laughingRolling on the floor laughingSkull I knew about Talcum X but this new revelation has sent me under. Lol.”
Check out the growing list of some of the nicknames Black Twitter has knighted King with.
