R.L. Stine wrecked me on Twitter
Reader beware, you are in for a scare
R.L. Stine wrecked me on Twitter
Reader beware, it’s time for a share.
There was nothing particularly spooky about May 30th, 2022. Yet another humdrum day of the late stage pandemic inside of our late stage planet being destroyed by late stage capitalism.
Who knew that at 736pm PST I would be roasted by undisputed king of childhood horror books R.L. Stine himself?
I sure didn’t.
And yet, much like the unsuspecting terrors of every Goosebumps book I couldn’t afford at the Scholastic book fairs and had to get at the library instead, that’s exactly what happened.
Be Careful What You Wish For…
Most jokes I post on Twitter are thinly veiled requests for approval. ‘Tell me you love me because I’m funny,” I beg, praying for a viral. But this? This was different.
This joke felt pure. It popped into my mind and within seconds I had pulled up the corresponding image and hit send. I was, to quote Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi whose first name is inside his last name, in a flow state. Here’s the joke:
A couple hours later, my pal Katie messaged me: “Alex did you see what happened on Twitter?”
Be Careful What You Wish For…
I rush back to my computer thinking You Can’t Scare Me! but holy shit when I saw this, I was spooked beyond repair.
!!!! This was, and I cannot stress this enough, A Shocker On Shock Street. R.L. Stine, the actual human author who orchestrated every fear of my childhood like a creepy ass puppeteer, had responded.
And not just responded but responded with spice. No sugar. No nice. He told me in no uncertain terms to Go Eat Worms! / Say Cheese and Die!
To be fair: he wasn’t wrong. As my pal and writer of the hilarious Bright Spots newsletter amongst many other talents Chris Duffy said - the Listerine bit was, at best, kind of funny. RL Stine called it like he saw it: there’s definitely something there - a connection between RL Stine and Listerine - sure, but is it a fully fleshed out joke that’s ready for prime time aka on twitter with the man himself RL Stine tagged? No sir it is not.
To make this One Day at Horrorland even worse, I got ratio’d. And not just by any old joe exotic, no I got ratio’d by The Abominable Snowman of Pasadena himself, RL Stine.1
Deep Trouble
Were RL Stine and I about to get into a public twitter feud? Was my career over? Was this joke The Blob That Ate Everyone and by Everyone I do of course just mean me?
Not being one to Stay Out Of The Basement, I decided to take a screenshot of what RL Stine did and post it.
As my pal Vinny Thomas noted with great disapproval, I did once again tag RL (that’s what I call him now) hoping he would see it and continue the bit / debate / conversation.
But much to my chagrin, or to be more specific to my chagrimace2, my interlocutor RL Stine had become RL Silent.
This was worse then The Horror at Camp Jellyjam.
I was not about to let this injustice stand. I became The Barking Ghost and started writing a strongly worded reply full of both vim AND vigor until it hit me: I had no idea who RL Stine really was.
Sure, he was a cultural touchstone for everyone in my generation, and yes the man could clearly write a spooky tale for kids age 7-12, and no doubt he had absolutely eviscerated me in front of 450 million active monthly users on Twitter, but who was RL really? Before writing him again (which I definitely did), I had some homework to do.
How I Got My Shrunken Head
So began My Hairiest Adventure yet. After doing nothing but researching this man for the last month, here is what I’ve found:
Fact: Stine began as a comedy writer!! Given his ruthless, accurate and not to mention hilarious response to my tweet, this should have been obvious. According to the incredibly well done biography on his website, RL Stine wrote dozens (multiple amounts of 12) comedy books under the name JOVIAL BOB STINE (a genuinely funny name) and was the creator and editor of the humor magazine Bananas for 74 issues!
If that doesn’t prove how funny he is, take a look at his twitter header image.
I mean. This is objectively hilarious. The cut off face, the white border - this is Andy Kaufmanesque talent. Here is the actual image:
Fact: In 1986, RL wrote his first horror book for teenagers - Blind Date. Here’s his reasoning: “I told myself, Forget the funny stuff. Kids like to be scared!“
Fact: RL didn’t want to do Goosebumps! Here’s what he said about it in a recent interview:
The series [Fear Street] was going well and my editor said, "You know, no one's ever done a scary book series for 7 to 12-year-olds. We should try it." And I said, "No, I don't want to." Because I was afraid it would screw up the Fear Street audience. That's the kind of businessman I am. I didn't want to do Goosebumps. And I kept saying, "No, I don't want to do it." And finally, they kept after me and I said, "Well, okay, maybe we'll try two or three." Now, 30 years later...
Fact: RL has been married to the same woman since 1969. I don’t know why but it makes me deeply happy whenever I see that someone famous has stayed with the person they were with before they got famous.
Fact: His books have sold over 400 million copies! That makes him one of the top selling writers OF ALL TIME. And he’s written over 330 books total. THAT IS SO MANY BOOKS. I AM TALKING AN AVERAGE OF SEVEN BOOKS PER YEAR. SEVEN!
It was at this point, dear reader, that I felt a true sense of awe. Robert Lawrence Stine aka Jovial Bob Stine aka Eric Affabee wrote So Many Books. Beyond Goosebumps he wrote several other horror series for kids, a children’s picture book, a comic book, stand alone novels for adults and kids alike, short stories a plenty, anthologies, etc etc etc.
Just this year he launched his first original horror comic book series for adults called Stuff of Nightmares which I can only assume is about him eviscerating me on Twitter AND he also released yet another Goosebumps book called Haunting With The Stars, the 17th book in the Slappyworld Goosebumps series, a collection of stories all from Slappy the Dummy.
Legend of the Lost Legend
Looking at RL’s body of work, one thing is clear: no matter what, the dude just kept writing. Through highs and lows, Vampire Breath and Night of the Living Dummy, the work was the same: write more stuff.
And so that’s what I will do - write and write and write and eventually, without fail, I will sell 401 million spooky ass books for kids. Right? RIGHT?
No no, I joke. And yes yes, it is only sort of funny.
For real though, I do want to keep talking with RL Stine. I want him to teach me how to write no matter what , how to tell good scary stories for kids so I can be a better dad, and of course how to be funny not just sort of funny.
Yesterday evening I tweeted RL Stine one final time (good rhyme) asking if he’d be interested in talking further with me:
Am I scared? Yes.
Has he responded at the time of this being published. No.
Will I tell tell my grandkids about the time RL Stine absolutely wrecked their grandpa on Twitter? You bet your butt.
For those of you who have somehow avoided making the hell site twitter dot com your whole life during the pandemic: getting ratio’d means that a reply to your post gets much more attention (via likes and retweets) than your original post).
if nothing else I hope RL sees this and is proud of the word chagrimace that I just created
omg vinny thomas is friend with you!? (originally I was going to write this as "omg you're friends with vinny thomas" and then i realized NAY, tis vinny who has the pleasure)
we can listen now wow!!!!