Thread by @DefiantBaptist

The Cautionary Tale of MattAAW, A Thread

Most of you will be familiar with the 𝕏 user MattAAW, as he was a seemingly rock solid Ron DeSantis supporter. Yesterday, he shocked me and everyone else by tweeting out that he would be voting for Donald Trump in November because of the border, which was a complete 180 from where he had been. I wanted to share my thoughts on what happened, as I had a unique behind-the-scenes view. I'm also at least partially responsible for this. 🙃

This is not meant to pile on Matt. He's receiving a lot of (well deserved) criticism for his flip, but I really want to look at the bigger picture. But before I get to that, I want to describe what happened because what happened is absolutely mind-blowing! Please read to the end and share! (1/11)

I met Matt last fall, shortly after I had achieved monetization. He was a really nice guy with a few hundred followers, and I sensed he had a good heart, so I really wanted to boost his content. I shared with him some techniques that I used to be able to grow my account. For those of you that don't know, in order to monetize your account, you need to have 5,000,000 impressions during a 90 day period. It's a big lift, especially if you don't have a lot of followers. (2/11)

So over the ensuing months, he would share tweets with me via DM, and I would retweet them if I could. Some of his content was a bit too spicy, but most of it was okay. For sure, he was a lot more vitriolic toward Donald Trump and MAGA than I was, but I thought we had the same goal. And the boosting seemed to work. Before long, he had 2,000 new followers, and he was getting a lot more impressions. (3/11)

Fast-forwarding to the last few weeks, I noticed that Matt's tweets were getting pretty extreme. He was lashing out at MAGA even more than usual, even telling DeSantis supporters that they couldn't come back to DeSantis in 2028 if they were voting for Trump this year. I didn't really get involved with that because I think it's silly. We don't have enough of a coalition to act that way. All that to say, Matt was very much "Only DeSantis," even as recently as 3/20/2024. (4/11)

That brings us to yesterday, 3/21/2024. I quote-tweeted the video of illegals storming the El Paso border. It was really upsetting to me, understandably. Matt replied to be that this was forcing him to vote for Trump! I was absolutely shocked. I immediately hit him up in the DMs to talk him off the ledge. He lives in a state that Trump won +20 in the 2020, so I told him, "Trump doesn't need your vote." But the decision had been made; there was no going back. I was absolutely floored. (5/11)

Matt sent out the following tweet. He sent it to me in the DMs. I did not reply, retweet, or quote-tweet. Matt was clearly upset, at least based on what he was telling me privately. I basically remained neutral in the conversation, not wanting to encourage him or validate his spiraling. I knew that my association with him was coming to an end, but I had no idea just how viral this moment would become! (6/11)

Almost instantly, he got retweeted by Dinesh D'Souza and then quote-tweeted by Laura Loomer. Benny Johnson too. (Apparently Benny also made a video about his tweet.) Matt was a made MAGA man. It didn't matter that he had attacked Loomer in the past; she was now his ally! Impressions went to the moon!

Suddenly the heavy heart was light as a feather and the tears completely dried up. Matt was able to monetize his account instantly, off of one tweet! To be able to accomplish that with less than 3,000 followers was incredibly lucky from my experience. This all happened so quickly that I don't think Matt realized just how much he had changed, but he surely had. (7/11)

The accolades didn't stop there. Matt's tweet got the attention of Elon Musk himself! This further drove traffic to his tweet and his account. I believe Elon was tipped off to this by Defiant L's who created a spicy screenshot based of Matt's dramatic change. The criticism was completely overwhelmed by the praise, however, with even Tim Pool getting in on the act. This was around the time where I left the DMs after telling Matt that we are now on different paths. I wished him well, but I knew that I could no longer associate with his content. He had become compromised. (8/11)

Matt's follower count also exploded. Before the tweet, he had 2,361 followers. At the time of this writing, it's 3,674 (+1,300). That is MASSIVE growth for a relatively small account, and I'm sure he will be over 4,000 soon. Like I said earlier, mind-blowing. I have move than double the followers that Matt does, and I've never experienced anything close to this. (9/11)

Post-viral tweet, Matt is in a really strange headspace. He says he's not going to attack Trump or MAGA, but rather only Biden. He also says he's still going to promote DeSantis. This tweet below displays just how conflicted he is. Does he realize he can't attack Loomer anymore when she lies about DeSantis? Not likely. Like I said, this happened so quickly that Matt had no time to consider the full ramifications of his decision! He doesn't realize he has gold (plated) handcuffs now, a new audience that he has to please in order to maintain his new found fame.

But now I want to shift to the bigger picture. What does this mean for Republicans like me that desperately want Trump and MAGA extricated from the party? (10/11)

This affair was VERY disheartening for me as an anti-Trump conservative. I just don't know how we compete with this. It's just so easy to achieve social media fame and monetary gain, just by putting on the red hat and dancing a jig for the cult. That's all. Nothing more. One tweet. We will take care of you.

I love to boost small accounts (and will continue to do so), and I know many of you do too, but we just don't have the numbers to make an impact like you see above. Most of the largest DeSantis accounts in Con Inc. are voting for Trump in the general, so there's no way in hell that they'll boost someone that says they're not voting for Trump! So what do we do? That's a genuine question. We can't fight a cult with a cult, that's for sure. We will just become what we hate. I don't have answers. What a bloody mess. (11/11)

Unroll please. @threadreaderapp