nutpick
verbEtymology Blend of nut + nitpick; see nut (“crazy person”). Coined by a commenter in 2006 and popularized by Kevin Drum.
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Internet To cherry-pick poor representatives of a viewpoint (i.e., from Internet postings) in order to disparage it.
- Nutpicking has gotten easy over the last few years–just check out the Twitter feeds of Teanderthal Members of Congress.2014 January 29, mistermix, “Notes from Last Night’s Putsch”, in Balloon Juice:
- The blog-era term "nutpicking", which refers to cherry-picking the worst or nuttiest comments to disparage a larger group ("liberals", "conservatives", "feminists") by falsely implying the views are widely-held within the group, needs to be revived. It's very common on Twitter.[2018 April 23, Nate Silver, Twitter:
1 more example
- If there’s a right-wing analog to the Media Matters machine, it often comes in the ongoing effort to “nutpick” radical professors, highlight their most ridiculous (and often years-old) comments, and try to drive them out of their jobs.2019 March 18, David French, “There’s a Fake Outrage Machine on the Right, Also”, in National Review: