What's especially funny about Bateman's tantrum is that she's lashing out at what's supposed to be an elite A-list: People selected first by Twitter to be part of a limited testing group for a new "re-tweeting" format, and then selected again by people Bateman follows, in the form of re-posted tweets.

When Twitter announced this feature in an August 13 blog post, it said re-tweets would now use the picture of the original tweeter, instead of the re-tweeter, but would be clearly labeled, and that one could turn the feature off. But the labeling wasn't clear enough for Bateman. After seeing repeated incoming posts from tech blogger John Gruber, since he had been re-tweeted by people she follows, Bateman called him a "shithead" and "human waste." (Gruber himself is famously an aficionado of this sort of name-calling, adding an additional wrinkle of humor to the situation.) Humorist and branding whiz Tim Siedell was dubbed a "jackass" by Bateman, who further warned,

I'm set to flame this incident all over the Internet. I suggest for the sake of your reputation on-line, YOU GET YOUR TWITTER ACCOUNT TOGETHER and stop this attempt to shove your posts into other people's feeds.

Awesome.

Twitter Inc., which is still experimenting with this re-tweeting format, should keep in mind that Bateman isn't the sharpest test subject in the lab. She flipped out at rebloggers on Tumblr without taking the time to grok the blogging service's culture of quoting and of editing quotes. Later, Bateman, behind on her memes, lashed out at a fan who tried to praise her "white whine." Easily confused though Bateman may be, Twitter should probably take the time to create an "opt out" button simple and obvious enough for even her to use. Because God help you, Twitter Inc., if Mallory turns her e-guns on you.

Bateman already posts literally dozens of times per day to her Tumblr. Not that we're judging, but she wants to throw up even more content, via her BlackBerry, a setup that wasn't working out for her initially:

Grrrr. My Tumblr account won't stay signed-in on my Blackberry.

This prompted a reblog from photographer Mo Pitz, who added:

Might be the white whine of the week…

Indeed! But Bateman was not amused, and wrote a post titled "Interesting that you feel I'm WHINING." Ouch:

I don't remember sending out invitations. Feel free to Unfollow. Top right corner.

Don't be like that, 'Mals — it was totally supposed to be a compliment. Now you gave Mo a sad, amplified by the power of your celebrity:

Ohhhh, no… sorry. I didn't mean that as an insult…it was a joke. I thought it was a fairly common tumblr meme. Eek.

Kind of a big general internet meme, actually. But give Bateman time: At 30+ posts a day on her laptop and 'Berry, she's bound to get the hang of all your basic stupid memes eventually, and will thus have wasted as much of her brain as the rest of us on Tumblr.

This is despicable. I am a National Board member, elected by 75% of the voting membership, and I DID NOT GET A SAY ON THIS.

United For Strength apparently is making good on the “qualified voting platform”.
They did not ask all the members of the National Board to vote on this written assent.
They did everything to not allow the strike authorization to be mailed out to the membership to let them have their say.
They are now making this move to make sure the membership DOES NOT have a say on the current AMPTP proposal.

Additionally, your new “negotiating task force” has virtually NO ONE familiar with the future of New Media. And that’s smart when you’re negotiating a New Media contract because….?

Woe to the membership. Woe to the membership.

Comment by Justine Bateman — January 26, 2009 @ 12:53 pm

Whoa indeed. This marks just the latest example of the former Family Ties star's shoring up of her online presence, as she's been blogging and reblogging her heart out over at Tumblr's PonyPonyShow. What would we do, baby, without her trenchant and unwavering insights into this deeply debilitating labor standoff? Sha la la la.

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