Ask me again how lawyers argue without crying

How many times do we have to watch the same tweet go viral?

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Starting to think when I first saw this joke on Tumblr in the 2010s, that wasn’t the first time someone had made it, either ... —Kate

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In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.

When Carl Jung posited his theory of the collective unconscious, he was giving a possible explanation for how the same motifs appear in dreams and ancient myths across cultures without any apparent prior influence or connection—kind of like how everyone independently decided to rewatch The Sopranos in 2019. Instead of being born a blank slate, Jung believed all humans were subconsciously influenced by a collective well of experiences dating back to our earliest ancestors. This theory provides the most generous explanation I can come up with for why people have been tweeting this same tweet for almost 10 years.

lucy,, @curledbitch

how do lawyers argue without crying

According to Twitter’s advanced search feature, this tweet started cropping up in November and December of 2013. Throughout 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017, it appeared more and more, but according to the advanced search results, it didn’t start going viral until 2018. 

Jennaclaire @jennaaclaire

how do lawyers continuously argue without eventually crying or having a mental breakdown? I’d be a damn wreck wtf

In 2019, at least two different people went viral with it, warranting an article from a law website. One of those accounts posted the tweet again a year later. It, you guessed it, went viral once again.

Jim @lieslmao

how do lawyers not cry when arguing

At this point, half the tweets that reference the phrase mention how ubiquitous it is.

mélanie @earthdombaby

People are always like how do lawyers argue without crying? And then I think of how the lawyers in my office are Capricorns/Sagittarius and it all made sense

Taylor 🏳️‍🌈 @AwfulCreature

I saw a tweet posted to IG asking lawyers how they argue without crying, and, like - @ all lawyers how DO you argue without crying???? Inquiring minds want to know!

「ᴋɪʀᴀ」♥「ᴍʜ」 @HWANGMlNHYUN_

you know how people say how can lawyers argue without crying? youre wrong. we do cry. we cry before the proceeding while we were preparing for the case and finding our materials and we cry after the proceeding when our legs give out and we can finally, finally, breathe once again

It’s not just Twitter. I first saw this sentiment on Tumblr and remember reblogging it and showing it to my friend, and it was posted there again in 2019.

But the fact that this tweet appeared again 10 days ago is more maddening to me than I’d like to admit. Every time I see it on my timeline I want to aggressively slide into that person’s DMs: Is this really the first time you thought of this? What is your tweet adding to the world that the thousands of others haven’t already? 

Here’s the less generous explanation: this sentiment popped up organically, perhaps Jungian ... ly, but its persistence these past few years is due to the fact that for some reason posting it is a surefire way to go viral. The same thing happens with any tweet about a dress having pockets—which is asinine both for its overuse and the fact that if you put anything in dress pockets it immediately looks bad. (People are not talking enough about the downsides of dress pockets!)

I get the desire to post a tweet that almost guarantees virality, but I don’t know why we, as a society, continue to indulge opportunistic users with retweets. Lawyers argue without crying because they are professional adults and you, like me, are an idiot on Twitter. Next question, please.