Over the weekend, Twitter erupted when a woman posted an innocuous tweet about enjoying mornings in the garden with her husband. It was benign, had a typo, and felt like a perfectly unremarkable update that often invokes a smile and a quick scroll past, nothing more.
But here we are, talking about the Garden Coffee Lady.
“[M]y husband and i wake up every morning and bring our coffee out to our garden and sit and talk for hours. every morning. it never gets old & we never run out of things to talk to. love him so much,” wrote Daisey Beaton. And then the pile-on began.
For whatever reason, Beaton’s tweet about — gasp! — enjoying time with her husband outdoors triggered a collective wound. People immediately started replying with sarcasm-laced sentiments about how nice it must be to have “hours” to lounge in the morning with your husband, or how there is no way in hell the sanctity of this morning ritual would last.
Others lambasted Beaton, listing off their own ailments and struggles and condemning her for having the audacity to talk about a pleasant part of her life. Most negative commenters assumed that since she was able to have a slow-moving morning that she and her husband must be rich, somehow equating living anywhere above the poverty line as an act of violence.
The negative comments got so intense that Beaton wrote a followup tweet explaining that she and her husband are by no means rich: “We’ve worked extremely hard to get to where we’re at,” she said. “We live very minimally and consciously & work jobs that match our lifestyle and allow us to live the life that we do.” Her husband is a professional skateboarder who also teaches yoga, and Beaton has her own business as a cosmetologist, offering vegan and cruelty-free eyelashes.
Beaton offered her own take as to why the internet decided to tear her to shreds in an interview with Rolling Stone: “I think initially what set people off was the fact that I said how I get to spend hours with my husband every morning. People took it as we don’t have jobs or we live a life of luxury,” she explained.
It’s really wild that no one stopped to think that maybe she has a nontraditional work schedule, which has become increasingly common in the gig economy. Even a YouTuber commented, “For hours? But what if we weren’t inherently wealthy and have to work and stuff? Lol,” which, for those less familiar, is strange, considering the weird work hours many social media influencers and creators have.
Instead, it seems that most negative commenters projected their own complaints about their own life onto Beaton. And once a Tweet goes viral, it can be tempting to quote-tweet and dunk on a person getting ratio’d to get some likes and retweets of your own.
Luckily more than a few people started coming to her defense.
“‘Eat the rich’ has gone from ‘no one should be a billionaire’ to ‘no one living above the poverty level treating themselves and their husband to morning coffee in their garden should be happy’,” one person wrote.
And, if your goal is to truly take down capitalism (as many replies suggested was the end game), is combing through Twitter to find people enjoying a byproduct of capitalism helping that cause? Why don’t the same rules apply to the replier, who is more than likely using a device made by a tech monopoly? Why does the zero-sum game only apply to others, but for the commenter, they are simply a victim of the system who has no choice but to participate?
There’s a lot to be pissed off about in the world, including the hoarding of wealth and the fact that most people have to work several jobs just to survive, not to live. But how the hell is anyone supposed to eat the rich if everyone is fighting over the crumbs?
The last few years especially have been hard on everyone, and millions of people are feeling completely burned out and without any rest in sight. But that’s no excuse to ridicule someone who has found a little peace in each of their days with someone they love.
The good news is that Daisy doesn’t seem too bothered by the whole thing. And as the week has gone on, she’s returned to posting very cute picture of her and her partner frolicking in their (perfectly nice, but not extravagant) garden. She’s also changed her Twitter name to include “garden coffee lady.” Good for her.
