It was a hard day's night for Sean Ono Lennon on Wednesday, as he got into a Twitter feud that started over environmental issues and ended with the Beatles’ heir telling a stranger he should have been aborted.
The heated online debate between Lennon and “Frack Nation” director Phelim McAleer exploded when Lennon told a Twitter user “You are an argument for abortion.”
Lennon and his mother Yoko Ono have been extremely vocal in the fight against fracking, a controversial method of extracting gas and oil from the ground through drilling that is opposed by many environmental activists.
The mother-son duo have joined environmentalists to publicly campaign against the procedure, and have been lobbying Governor Cuomo to ban it in the state - as has already been done in Vermont and New Jersey.
The Twitter fight started when McAleer responded to Lennon’s tweet, arguing that golf courses use more water than drilling companies use in fracking. Lennon rejected the analogy, and the conversation quickly escalated.
McAleer accused environmentalists like Lennon of injecting violence into the issue, linking to an article about a politician who says he’s received death threats from environmental radicals.
“I don’t condone violence,” Lennon responded in a series of tweets. “I’m a pacificst, or perhaps you prefer the term, ‘hippie.’”
The Twitter back-and-forth continued to grow more heated, as more users got involved in the conversation.
One user, self-described as a “Tea Party patriot,” finally pushed Lennon over the edge by turning the attack on his famous mother.
“Sean Lennon like his mother is a hypocrite they don’t care about poverty, homelessness or birds,” the user with the Twitter handle “lolvincitomnia” wrote, calling Lennon a “peaceofs--tist” and an “Occutard” in subsequent tweets.
Lennon first seemed to brush off the tweet, dismissing his Twitter opponents as “hilarious,” but got increasingly riled up as the user continued to taunt him.
“All of yr mother’s shrill screeching in the world can’t distract from the fact, you’re hypocrites!!” the Twitter user responded.
“Wow, insulting my mom, nice one,” Lennon wrote. “You are an argument for abortion. How’s that?”
They continued to spar, as Lennon defended himself and his mother and continued to advocate against fracking - refusing to back down on his abortion comment.
When specifically called out for it by McAleer, Lennon defended himself, writing, "You mean because they insulted my mother. Why lie so much. Come on man, it undermines your cause."
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The Wisdumb of Sean Lennon