UPDATED: A hacked Twitter account probably devised Lindsay Lohan’s Brexit strategy
It’s official: the United Kingdom has voted to leave the European Union, a wide-ranging, complicated decision that we’re somehow forced to talk about via the label Brexit, a portmanteau that sounds like the latest puffed rice innovation from Kellogg. Understandably, social media is already swirling with Brexit-themed jokes and expressions of despair from people affected by the exit. And, as it turns out, some of those people are famous, which is a relief, since the quickly dashed-off reactions of celebrities are the only way we have to make sense of the often-terrible things that happen in our big, stupid, complicated world.
Obviously, many of the high-profile responses tonight are going to come from comedians, always the first line of attack in the information wars. As with any other group, that response can range from the solemn, like one from comic Hari Kondabolu, to the satirical, in the case of W. Kameau Bell, to the Game Of Thrones-obsessed, as with TVLand star Jim Gaffigan.
Gaffigan’s question is actually surprisingly apt; Time had an article this week about how Britain’s exit from the EU would negatively affect HBO’s beloved epic, which gets money from film subsidies for shooting in Northern Ireland. Those’ll presumably be gone now, likely forcing the show’s location scouts to hunt for other, more profitable places to stand-in for Westeros. That’s just one of a thousand issues encompassed by the Brexit, most of which are far too complicated for us to process right now.
When in doubt, though, we can always turn to John Oliver, America’s unofficial Ambassador For Explaining Whatever The Hell’s Going On In Britain Today. Oliver tackled the Brexit on Sunday’s Last Week Tonight, laying out all the arguments about why the split makes such little economic sense, and the xenophobic tendencies that might still bring it about. (He also provided viewers with a lovely little song about the U.K.’s complicated relationship with their European neighbors).
But, strangely enough, no one fought the Brexit harder today on social media than Lindsay Lohan. The actress has been largely out of the spotlight in the last few years, since the one-two punch of Lifetime’s Liz & Dick and the Bret Easton-Ellis-written The Canyons failed to revitalize her career. But Lohan jumped on Twitter earlier tonight, issuing 20 aggressive, highly specific tweets asking Britain to reconsider its self-removal from the EU.