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Michael Caine Returned To Twitter For The First Time In Months And Lasted About 10 Minutes

On Monday, a significant era in social media seemed to come to an inglorious end: Elon Musk did what he threatened to do and bought Twitter. The news sent shock waves across the platform itself. Some fled. It even affected stock connected to Donald Trump’s own failing stab at a Twitter clone. Whether this had anything to do with a strange pair of tweets from legendary actor Michael Caine is yet to be seen, but it managed to be the comic relief everyone needed.

Shortly before 6pm EST (Caine reportedly lives in London, in which case it would have been 11pm his time, though he could be traveling), the not-retired thespian and hater of blinking took to Twitter for the first time since January. The last time he tweeted, on January 12 of this year, he posted a picture of what looked like a golf cart in a lightly wooded area, with the words “Only The Best To All Of You.”

This time was equally friendly.

“Hello!” Caine tweeted. About 10 minutes later he was back. “Good Night My Sweet Ones,” he wrote this time.

Caine joined Twitter in September of 2010, a mere three years into its existence and well before it became the frequent world-uprooting hellscape it is today. Since then he’s only tweeted 345 times. Usually they’re just him wishing everyone well. He’s big on holidays. One time he simply wrote, “Have a great weekend.”

In other words, it’s both a big event when the star of Alfie tweets and charmingly mundane. But saying hello and goodbye in short succession was maybe the wildest thing he’d ever tweeted.

Some noted the speed with which Caine peaced out, wondering if it had to do with the big Elon Musk news or if he simply realized, after some 12 years, that Twitter wasn’t exactly a happy place.

https://twitter.com/Ali_Parker_/status/1518743272193093632

Others argued that Caine is one of the only people doing Twitter right.

There were jokes.

And some pointed out that, inadvertent or not, Caine showed that a legendary entertainer doing something eccentric on a public site shows the real power of Twitter.

At Caine’s rate of tweeting, he may not be back until the fall. But maybe that’s the best way to do Twitter.