“Do people really think I was TikToking in 2022,” the candidate asked in a post on X.

The reply happened in Sept. 2022 on Tyler Idol’s account, which she now has pinned to her page, and was unearthed by some right-wing dork on X Wednesday. The reply is now deleted, but according to saved recordings, it simply stated “Wow” and was accompanied by two smiling faces with hearts emoji. As for how you can tell it was from RFK Jr.’s TikTok account, it’s pretty obvious as the avatar is of the anti-vaxxer, and clicking on it took you to the official TikTok page for his campaign.

“Do people really think I was TikToking in 2022,” his post says. “This comment now appears on my account because the account was previously owned by one of the campaign’s young social media managers.”

I’ve always found it weird how Americans mandate putting punctuation inside quotes at all times.

It does appear that he has a point as the first video on his TikTok account was uploaded in May 2023, which was a month after he officially declared he was running for office. That was back when he was calling himself a Democrat, only to pivot to running as an independent candidate last October, and then to consider going for the libertarian ticket earlier this week. Mind you, former President Donald Trump’s camp did reach out at some point to discuss the anti-vaxxer as a VP pick. With such variable political leanings, maybe he should just run on the TikTok ticket.

  • @johannesvanderwhalesEnglish
    3•8 months ago

    The punctuation inside quotes thing is one of those rules where I know what the correct way of doing it is, but I intentionally do it wrong because I think more people do it the wrong way in practice. I guess it depends on context; I might do it the correct way in formal work correspondence.

    FWIW my teachers in school always said it was a thing that came from typesetting. But I have no idea if that’s actually true.

    • AatubeOP
      8•8 months ago

      In the days of the printing press, it was not feasible to have type blocks for single punctuation marks. The blocks would be too small and fragile. Punctuation marks were appended to the end of the letter. Instead of having a single block with a period (.) they had a block for each letter of the alphabet with a period. (a.), (b.), etc. Making blocks for both (“,) and (,”) was an unnecessary expense, so they went with (,"), and the convention stuck. —@[email protected]

      At least, it stuck in the USA.

      • @acetanilideEnglish
        5•8 months ago

        Interesting. I was taught that if the punctuation was in the quote, put it within the quotation marks. Otherwise I was to put it outside the marks. (American)

    • @[email protected]English
      1•8 months ago

      Whoever posted this put the thing about punctuation in there so we’d focus on that instead of the story.

      • @johannesvanderwhalesEnglish
        2•8 months ago

        I mean honestly I could give two shits about what the antivaxxer does. There’s zero chance I vote for him anyway.

    • @[email protected]English
      0•8 months ago

      I intentionally break that rule often, unless I’m writing a narrative or something for consumption by an audience of people senior to me.

      Outside is much more logical.