After Donald Trump delivered his Rocket Man-speech at the UN, the Elton John song title became a popular talking point on social media. A few days later, Kim Jong Un retaliated by calling Trump a dotard, an outdated English slur for an old, senile person. Un’s term quickly gained traction on social media as well.
We tracked and plotted the two insults on Twitter. It’s easy to see from the graph when the insults were launched by the respective leaders. Note how the emergence of dotard triggers a new, even bigger wave of rocket man mentions. We’ll leave it up to you to decide who’s the winner of this bizarre flame war.