That’s it. He quits. He’s moving on. Alec Baldwin, father of a newborn Baldwinito, has decided that he’s officially had enough of the social-networking platform known as Twitter. In an Instagram video taken while he was driving on Wednesday, March 3, Alec Baldwin announced that he has deactivated his Twitter account, saying the app is “where all the assholes in the United States and beyond go to get their advanced degrees in asshole-iness.†Yes, let’s leave it to the man who left a voicemail calling his daughter a spoiled pig, assaulted a photographer, and operates motor vehicles while filming Instagram videos to be the authority on what constitutes an asshole.
Baldwin’s breakup with Twitter comes after he tried and failed to make a dig at Gillian Anderson’s American accent while accepting her Golden Globe for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher on The Crown. “Switching accents? That sounds … fascinating,†Baldwin tweeted, linking to an article about Anderson’s speech and not-so-subtly referencing the criticism his wife, Hilaria Baldwin, received in December when it was revealed that her Spanish accent and heritage was, well, questionable at best. While Anderson often plays Brits and spent ten years of her childhood in London, she’s technically American, having been born in Chicago. Yes, it’s hard to believe, but she’s just really great at British accents. It’s called talent.
In his almost ten-minute-long Instagram video, Baldwin vaguely references the tweet, stating “I just wrote, ‘Oh, that’s interesting.’ And of course, you can’t do any irony on Twitter — you can’t do any irony in the United States anymore because the United States is such [an] uptight, stressed-out place and such an unpleasant place right now.†It looks like Baldwin is doing his part to make the world a more pleasant place by removing himself from Twitter dot-com, but given the Baldwin track record, he probably won’t be gone for too long. At the height of her accent scandal, Hilaria said she was taking an extended break from social media, only to return a month later. So, see you on Twitter in four weeks, Alec!