Sometimes, when you gaze into the abyss of Twitter, the abyss gazes also into you.* This has been particularly evident in the past two weeks with the appearance of a new Twitter account, @KimKierkegaard. The account combines vacuous tweets from Kim Kardashian with the writings of 19th century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, the cheerful man sometimes regarded as the first existentialist. He’s also credited with the expression “leap of faith” although he probably never said the exact phrase. You’ve also probably seen unattributed quotes taken from his books, such as “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”
@KimKierkegaard is also living forwards, gushing about makeup and new fashions between existential crises. The tweets are probably written by the same person or people behind @Justin_Buber, which mashes mundane statements made by Justin Bieber with existential gleanings from philosopher Martin Buber. I prefer this Kierkegaardashian parody account, however. After all, “far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good.” One of them said it; the other embodies it every day.
Our 10 favorite @KimKierkegaard tweets so far are collected below, with our thanks to Neatorama for lighting the way.
* I am aware this is a Nietzsche quote, not a Kierkegaard one, but feel free to question my intelligence and defame my mother in the comments all the same.
