If you’ve spent any time on the weird side of the internet over the last decade, you’ve probably seen that one screenshot. It’s a tweet from 2012. It’s blunt. It’s written in all caps. And it basically tells people that if they're getting bullied online, they should just walk away from the screen.
"Hahahahahahahaha," it starts. Then it asks how cyber bullying is even real.
Just close your eyes, right?
For a lot of people, that tweet is the ultimate "old internet" relic. It’s a time capsule from an era when Tyler, The Creator was the king of shock value, leading a group of teenagers called Odd Future who seemed hell-bent on offending every single person with a Wi-Fi connection. But honestly, looking back at it now in 2026, the story of Tyler the Creator cyber bullying is way more complicated than a single edgy tweet.
It wasn’t just about telling people to "log off." It was about an artist who built a career on being a provocateur and then had to deal with the real-world fallout when that provocation turned into actual harassment.
The Tweet Heard 'Round the Web
Let's look at the actual text. On December 31, 2012, Tyler posted:
"Hahahahahahahaha How Is Cyber Bullying Real Hahahaha Girl Just Walk Away From The Screen Like Girl Close Your Eyes Haha"
It’s funny in a dark, reductive way. It’s also incredibly dismissive of the actual psychological toll of online harassment. At the time, Tyler was 21. He was the "enfant terrible" of rap. To him, the internet was a playground where you said the most outrageous stuff possible just to see who would flinch.
If you didn’t like it? Click the X in the corner. That was his philosophy.
But the reality of the early 2010s was different. This was the same era when the tragic story of Tyler Clementi (no relation) and Amanda Todd were making national headlines. People were actually dying because of what was happening on their screens. For a major artist to tweet that it "wasn't real" felt like a slap in the face to victims.
Yet, for a specific subculture of fans, Tyler was a hero. He represented a total rejection of "soft" culture.
When Provocation Becomes Harassment
There’s a massive difference between rapping about something in a song and directed social media attacks. Tyler often blurred those lines.
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Take the Selena Gomez situation. For years, Tyler sent incredibly graphic, dehumanizing tweets directed at her. We aren't talking about "I don't like your music." We're talking about violent, sexualized comments that would get anyone banned from X (formerly Twitter) instantly today.
He did the same thing with Tegan and Sara. After the indie-pop duo criticized his lyrics as misogynistic and homophobic, he didn’t just ignore them. He went on the offensive. He used his massive platform to direct his followers toward them.
This is where the Tyler the Creator cyber bullying conversation gets messy.
When a celebrity with millions of followers tweets at a private citizen or a less-famous artist, it’s not just a "joke." It’s an instruction manual for a digital mob. In 2013, a feminist activist in Australia named Talitha Stone campaigned to have Tyler’s visa revoked because of his lyrics. Tyler responded by dedicated a segment of his Sydney show to verbalizing threats against her while she was in the audience.
His fans followed suit. She was flooded with rape and death threats online.
Was Tyler "bullying" her? Or was he just "being himself"? Most people today would say it’s the former. You can’t weaponize a fanbase and then claim you’re just a guy behind a keyboard.
The Ban and the Pivot
The consequences eventually caught up. Between 2014 and 2015, Tyler was banned from entering New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Theresa May, the UK Home Secretary at the time, specifically cited his lyrics and his "unacceptable behavior" as a threat to public order.
He was being treated like a terrorist for things he wrote when he was 18.
This was a wake-up call. You could see the shift start to happen around the Cherry Bomb era, but it really solidified with Flower Boy in 2017. The guy who told people to "just close their eyes" started opening his own.
He became vulnerable. He started talking about loneliness, his sexuality, and the weight of his past.
In his 2021 song "MANIFESTO," he finally addressed the Selena Gomez tweets directly:
"I was a teener, tweetin' Selena crazy s** / Didn't wanna offend her, apologize when I seen her."*
It wasn't a PR-scrubbed apology posted by a management team. It was a 30-year-old man looking back at his 19-year-old self and cringing.
Why We Still Talk About It
The reason the Tyler the Creator cyber bullying tweet still goes viral every few months is because it captures a fundamental tension of the modern age.
On one hand, the tweet is right: we do have the power to put the phone down. We have the power to block, mute, and ignore. There is a certain level of personal agency that gets lost in the conversation about online safety.
On the other hand, the tweet is dangerously wrong. The internet isn't a separate room anymore. It’s our jobs. It’s our social lives. It’s where our reputations live. You can’t "walk away" from a digital shadow that follows you into your real life.
Tyler’s evolution is a rare case of an artist actually growing up in public. Most celebrities who get "canceled" for old tweets either disappear or become professional victims. Tyler just... got better at music. He traded shock value for actual value.
He didn't stop being weird. He didn't stop being loud. He just stopped being a bully.
Actionable Insights for the Digital Age
If you're looking at the history of Tyler's online presence and wondering how to navigate the current landscape, here are a few takeaways that aren't just "close your eyes."
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- Platform Power is Real: If you have a following, your "venting" is someone else’s harassment. Realize that your words carry weight far beyond your own intentions.
- The "Log Off" Rule (Modified): While you can't always escape bullying, digital hygiene matters. Taking 24-hour breaks from social media during a "dogpile" can literally save your nervous system.
- Context Changes, Records Don't: Everything you post is permanent. Tyler is a Grammy winner now, but he still has to answer for things he said as a teenager. Think about who you want to be in ten years before you hit "post" today.
- Apologize When It Counts: Tyler didn't win people back with a Notes-app apology. He won them back by changing his behavior and acknowledging his specific mistakes in his art.
The internet in 2026 is a lot more regulated than it was in 2012. We have better tools to stop harassment, but the human element hasn't changed. People are still mean. People still want to belong to a group. And sometimes, the best advice really is to just put the phone in a drawer for a while. Just maybe don't be a jerk about it when you tell people.
To learn more about how online culture has shifted, you can look into the history of "cancel culture" or study the evolution of platform moderation policies since 2010. Knowing where we came from is the only way to figure out where we're going.
Next Steps:
If you want to see how this story fits into the larger music landscape, you might want to look at how other Odd Future members like Earl Sweatshirt or Frank Ocean handled their early controversies. Each took a very different path toward maturity.