During Thursday’s competition, a Twitter user criticized the spelling bee for having a “comfort couch” for competitors to calm down after they were eliminated.
“Unsure of why the national spelling bee has a “comfort couch” you [expletive] lost suck it up quit teaching kids it’s okay to loose [sic].”
It’s a mean way to talk about elementary and middle school students, who have to be 15 or younger to compete, but that’s not the only problem with this tweet.
The eagle-eyed folks who run the National Spelling Bee’s Twitter account corrected the author’s spelling in a one word reply: “lose.”
Keep in mind, Nihar Janga, 11, and Jairam Hathwar, 13, had to spell the words “gesellschaft” and “Feldenkrais” to win the competition.
The tweet has been deleted and the Twitter user apparently deleted his account, but that didn’t keep the Internet from having fun at his expense.
The @ScrippsBee account joked back and forth with viewers throughout the event, but most of the interactions were much more lighthearted.
The moral of the story: Taking on the Scripps National Spelling Bee on Twitter is a loosing, or rather a losing, proposition.