Joyce Carol Oates.
Photo: Getty Images
Joyce Carol Oates is many things – award-winning novelist, winner of the National Book Award, finalist of the Pulitzer Prize – and she can now add “purveyor of the worst photo of the internet of a foot” to her long and impressive summary . Oates tweeted out the image under a misleadingly harmless title, declaring that she had worn the wrong shoes on a walk. “So important to wear proper walks,” reads the tweet. “Never / ever walk in the woods in sandals. The blow of my left foot this morning – poisoned climb? gif oak? you must have gone into something … ”The title holds the eldritch horror of the accompanying footage, that should be seen to be believable (but you probably better not do it).
Oates letter thank you everyone for her “suggestions & sympathy” and stated that she is now taking antibiotics. But the damage was done, and the image burned forever in the retinas of unordered thousands. It’s unclear if Oates understood the dark energy she unleashed with her photo, because the original tweet is still there, despite protests from many. But this is probably Oates’ MO – she wrongly accused Steven Spielberg of murdering a triceratops back in 2015, and never deleted that tweet. Oates told later Newsweek, “Many of my tweets are meant to be funny; but I think that’s not always a good idea, ‘revealed that she’s actually a genius.
