How can a tweet destroy your life.

Susie2310 · Feb 21, 2015

It makes me shake my head to see nurses here also condemning these people without taking a second to realize that literally anyone could be a victim of this. Taken out of context and without any idea of who you really are/what you meant by them, your words can offend anyone. Their hurt feelings should not be your problem/responsibility.

The point is that our words and actions, however innocent we believe our intentions are, have the power to cause distress to other people. Mature people realize this, and learn to modify their behavior to be considerate of the feelings of other people. There are people who, for example, abuse other people and consider it fun, rationalizing that they "only" intended their behavior to be humorous, i.e. they were just "playing."

We're talking about behaving respectfully towards other people.

Following your logic one can rationalize the behavior of a sexual abuser who claims they didn't mean to hurt anyone, and thought their behavior was welcome/acceptable.

bebbercorn · Feb 23, 2015

I had to google this, because the stupidity was so unbelievable, but the article didn't seem like satire... Common sense, people.

RNsRWe, ASN, RN · Feb 24, 2015

or!! perhaps YOU have.

Wow. I believe the decent thing to do, the thing most normal people would do, would be to apologize for a statement as outrageous as the one you chose to make. You give insensitivity a whole new meaning.

Can never overestimate the inability of some people to recognize this, I guess. A shame.

gypsyd8 · Feb 24, 2015

It dismays me that anyone in this profession would feel righteous about someone receiving way more punishment than their act deserved. Really dismayed.

"Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave"

While all the proles are running around, wagging their fingers at each other, rejoicing over lost jobs and destroyed lives, they are not noticing their wages stagnating, their bills mounting, their freedoms disappearing.

panem et circenses

gypsyd8 · Feb 24, 2015

i would say we didn't advance one micrometer with this demonstration of social values. Perhaps the anonymous champions should go after bigger targets.

You have hit the proverbial nail on the head. More importantly- did anyone else notice?

If I were to point out the bigger targets:the geopolitical forces that benefit from black Africans having disproportionately high rates of HIV infection, the men responsible for all those unknown soldiers being entombed, or or those that benefit from half the population being trapped in low wage-dead end jobs while simultaneously being responsible for the majority of debt, would any of the people so self-righteously commenting here bat a false eyelash? Would they even care?

I would argue (and I think this was the point of Ronson's essay, a point that Yeagered over so many heads here) the the people who participate in these modern public floggings (and I gleefully watched Sacco's downfall) are just like the hundreds of people cheering in [insert barbaric country of choice preferably in the Mid-East] when someone gets publicly flogged or stoned or set on fire for breaking a taboo. We are so beaten down, so utterly devoid of hope, that we gleefully pile on the scapegoat du jour because it gives us a respite from our own meaningless pointless existence.

We are cogs in the machine and we know it. Sacco's faux pas was so brilliantly executed: rich, white, privileged lady making a rich, white privileged comment. She was the sacrificial lamb for the rich, white, privileged people that are running our lives into the ground. Stone was a perfect stand-in for the clueless politicians that wantonly send thousands of people to die and be dismembered in foreign countries FOR NO REASON. The dongle guy was the recipient of the wrath of hundreds of women trapped in dead-end jobs and the chick who ruined his life is the bane of MRA's everywhere.

If we went after the bigger targets there would be a revolution. Nobody wants that, because when it does come your Michael Kors bag will be just another sack, and your Iphone will be a paperweight. And when the bloodletting is over, and the guillotine falls for the last time, you will look around and be in exactly the same place, just with a new boss. So enjoy the show, and giggle at the forced outrage.

BTW my family was in the military too - and my uncle would have found Stone's antics hilarious, because his generation knew that war was a farce perpetrated by rich people in power on poor people who were desperate. He knew that all the "respect" we give "our troops" is a false flag operation designed to obfuscate the fact that our government is killing its own citizens for fun and profit. And if one doesn't think the last ten years proves that, they haven't been paying attention.

morte, LPN, LVN · Feb 24, 2015

Wow. I believe the decent thing to do, the thing most normal people would do, would be to apologize for a statement as outrageous as the one you chose to make. You give insensitivity a whole new meaning.
Can never overestimate the inability of some people to recognize this, I guess. A shame.

your attempts to be insulting are juvenile at best. and most ineffective. your inability to see any point but your own with your alleged level of education is embarrassing.

morte, LPN, LVN · Feb 24, 2015

Here, Here!

You have hit the proverbial nail on the head. More importantly- did anyone else notice?
If I were to point out the bigger targets:the geopolitical forces that benefit from black Africans having disproportionately high rates of HIV infection, the men responsible for all those unknown soldiers being entombed, or or those that benefit from half the population being trapped in low wage-dead end jobs while simultaneously being responsible for the majority of debt, would any of the people so self-righteously commenting here bat a false eyelash? Would they even care?
I would argue (and I think this was the point of Ronson's essay, a point that Yeagered over so many heads here) the the people who participate in these modern public floggings (and I gleefully watched Sacco's downfall) are just like the hundreds of people cheering in [insert barbaric country of choice preferably in the Mid-East] when someone gets publicly flogged or stoned or set on fire for breaking a taboo. We are so beaten down, so utterly devoid of hope, that we gleefully pile on the scapegoat du jour because it gives us a respite from our own meaningless pointless existence.
We are cogs in the machine and we know it. Sacco's faux pas was so brilliantly executed: rich, white, privileged lady making a rich, white privileged comment. She was the sacrificial lamb for the rich, white, privileged people that are running our lives into the ground. Stone was a perfect stand-in for the clueless politicians that wantonly send thousands of people to die and be dismembered in foreign countries FOR NO REASON. The dongle guy was the recipient of the wrath of hundreds of women trapped in dead-end jobs and the chick who ruined his life is the bane of MRA's everywhere.
If we went after the bigger targets there would be a revolution. Nobody wants that, because when it does come your Michael Kors bag will be just another sack, and your Iphone will be a paperweight. And when the bloodletting is over, and the guillotine falls for the last time, you will look around and be in exactly the same place, just with a new boss. So enjoy the show, and giggle at the forced outrage.
BTW my family was in the military too - and my uncle would have found Stone's antics hilarious, because his generation knew that war was a farce perpetrated by rich people in power on poor people who were desperate. He knew that all the "respect" we give "our troops" is a false flag operation designed to obfuscate the fact that our government is killing its own citizens for fun and profit. And if one doesn't think the last ten years proves that, they haven't been paying attention.

gypsyd8 · Feb 24, 2015

Just needs to be read again. I agree, this is wisdom. From Mother Goose:

There is another problem besides the stupidity of the tweets, or childish shenanigans at a place where too many people grieve for anything to be 'funny'.
The article is more about the viciousness of the public reactions, and the consequences like losing your job and your previous social status (however humble) and becoming a pariah.
In my opinion, a person opens themselves up to the mob tweeting against our sacred lightning rods like sexism and racism. Obviously the consequences are bad. I wouldn't do it however much I wanted to, just because of stories like these.
But the mob itself is the point of this article. People used to go to public executions or punishments for entertainment purposes, they still do in other places. It's like the mob mentality is alive and well however indecent it would be to go and laugh at someone being whipped or hung. We can do it in the safety of being anonymous, which is one part of how mobs form, as individuals get absorbed into a 'herd mind' or whatever. Whatever the 'lightning rod' issue is, sexism and racism in this article, a mob forms in response, and the individuals will have some shared world view that the lightning rod issue trips.
The worst thing about tweeting is how brief your tweets must be, and how easily context is lost or disregarded. A single tweet could be 'heard' many different ways, depending on what YOU yourself 'hear', which is in turn influenced by your pre-existing attitudes and belief system. The word "abortion", without any context at all, is going to mean something very different to a research MD and a Christian. To one it means a pregnancy ended before term and to the other one of our greatest human failings. Tweets are dangerous!
Which leads me to think, how a tweet could end your career when it is actually a minuscule piece of information that could mean a number of things but no one knows for sure without the context?
Are we willing to participate in a mob that causes a person to lose their basics of safety (home, job, status) when we don't really know what was meant? Should the immature woman gaffing at a veteran's cemetery have lost all three when she meant no insult and had a fruitcake idea of fun? I don't think so. If she offended so many people, who had to put their own agenda as her context, who's problem should it be? It shouldn't be hers. Having her Facebook spammed for a while by offended people seems more reasonable, maybe she'll think twice about her privacy settings, but to lose your job and be hated and threatened? That's just wrong! Too much punishment. And the mob . . . how embarrassing to be caught up in something like that?

Garden,RN, ASN, RN · Jul 26, 2016

I totally understand the business owner firing the employee for so many obvious reasons. For years I have felt that it should be mandatory to take manners in school. I think good manners would go a long way in helping us live more peacefully together. In our daily conversations we have allowed all social graces to break down. For example, I have gone to stores where employees are using the f word. It is commonplace among younger generations, so when we see it in writing we should not be surprised.

LadyFree28, BSN, LPN, RN · Jul 26, 2016

What tweet is this???

In general, a percentage of people have thrown decency, mindfulness and emotional intelligence out the window; however, this is not true, especially when eras such as The Enlightenment, Abolition, Sufferage (as well as the updated Women's) and Civil Rights movements come to mind as to railing against foolishness.

If social media is giving a lesson to those who want to spout off absurdities, then, it's about TIME.

Ruas61, BSN, RN · Jul 26, 2016

The down side is the mob mentality. I see a lot of self-righteous that is in fact not after the fact. This is a double edge sword.

kater_92 · Jul 27, 2016

Just wanted to share a story of someone I know who got fired. She worked in an office, and had to run a machine on a patient in a dark room for 30 minutes. She took a selfie of herself, with flash, and posted it on fb saying, "another boring day at my boring job!" Not only did the patient complain of seeing a flash and she thought the girl had taken a photo of her, but her coworkers showed her boss the photo she posted on Facebook. She was obviously fired straight afterwards. Use common sense, people! Even if your Facebook profile is private, you never know who will be willing to out you.