Bret Stephens: NYT journalist quits Twitter amid ridicule for his response to 'bedbug' insult

He invited professor behind Twitter joke to come to his home and 'call me 'bedbug' to my face'

New York Times columnist Bret Stephens has deactivated his Twitter account after he was widely ridiculed for his response to being called a “bedbug”.

On Monday, after it was revealed that the newspaper's Manhattan offices have a bedbug infestation, David Karpf, a professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University, jokingly tweeted that the bedbugs are a metaphor for Stephens.

“The bedbugs are a metaphor,” he wrote. “The bedbugs are Bret Stephens.”

The tweet, which Stephens was not tagged in and which, according to Karpf, only received a few likes and zero retweets, prompted The Times columnist to send an angry email to Karpf and his university’s provost.

In the email, which Karpf shared on Twitter, Stephens condemned the professor for referring to him as a bedbug - a term he said sets a “new standard”.

“Someone just pointed out a tweet you wrote about me, calling me a ‘bedbug,’” Stephens wrote. “I’m often amazed about the things supposedly decent people are prepared to say about other people - people they’ve never met - on Twitter. I think you’ve set a new standard.”

The conservative writer then proceeded to invite Karpf to his home to meet his wife and children and call him a “‘bedbug’ to my face”.

“That would take some genuine courage and intellectual integrity on your part,” he continued. “I promise to be courteous no matter what you have to say.”

Stephens concluded the email informing Karpf his invitation was a standing one and that he was “more than welcome” to bring his significant other.

The exchange went viral after Karpf shared it on Twitter, prompting the creation of trending hashtags including #BretBug and #BedbugBret.

But, according to Karpf, he stands by his joke and believes that Stephen’s response was an “abuse of his power”.

“He not only thinks I should be ashamed of what I wrote, he thinks that I should also get in trouble for it,” Karpf told The Washington Post. “That’s an abuse of his power.”

On Tuesday, Stephens announced that he would be deactivating his Twitter because he feels the platform “brings out the worst in humanity”.

“Time to do what I long ago promised to do,” he wrote, according to a screenshot of the tweet. “Twitter is a sewer. It brings out the worst in humanity. I sincerely apologise for any part I’ve played in making it worse, and to anyone I’ve ever hurt. Thanks to all of my followers, but I’m deactivating this account.”

However, while appearing on MSNBC, Stephens defended his response, stating that he believes “that kind of rhetoric is dehumanising and totally unacceptable”.

Stephens also said he had “no intention whatsoever” of getting Karpf into professional trouble by emailing his provost.

“But it is the case at The New York Times and other institutions that people should be aware, managers should be aware, of the way in which their people, their professors or journalists, interact with the rest of the world,” he said, before adding: “There’s a bad history of being analogised to insects that goes back to a lot of totalitarian regimes in the past, I’ve been called worst.”