Pellau Magazine: The most offensive tweet EVER!

9:28 PM | Posted by Pellau | Edit Post

The firestorm that was recently generated by Justine Sacco‘s rather unwise tweet before traveling to South Africa proved to be a career-ender. Sacco, the head of PR forInterActiveCorp, the group that owns the Daily Beast, Vimeo, About.com, Match.com andAsk.com, clearly wasn’t using her brain when she tweeted:

“Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!”

One would think that the head of PR for any firm would anticipate such a tweet being received poorly by the masses, yet Sacco seemed to be blissfully ignorant of this fact.

This isn’t the first time she has posted controversial things in the public light, particularly in light of her professional career.

Even on her Facebook timeline, she’s posted an album titled, “Too Much Swagger for White Girls (Miami ’10).” While this might not seem overly offensive, it’s one of a number of instances in which she’s made racial jokes and comments.

Perhaps that is why IAC reacted as they did almost immediately after discovering the tweet:

“This is an outrageous, offensive comment that does not reflect the views and values of IAC. This is a very serious matter and we are taking appropriate action.”

With that, one would think Sacco’s head was on the chopping block, but IAC had another problem to deal with in trying to close the matter before it went viral:

“Unfortunately, the employee in question is unreachable on an international flight.”

That flight was about 11 hours long, which prompted a flood of tweets with the hashtag “#HasJustineLandedYet.”

Many found it funny that Sacco’s career was in the process of burning to ashes and she wouldn’t be aware of it for what is an eternity in the digital world. One Twitter user, David Flor, wrote:

“It is kinda wild to see someone self-destruct without them even being aware of it.”

With this having been said, it’s also appalling to see the number of hate messages and comments directed at Sacco. When people try to degrade everything about her life, including writing hate messages towards her child, people reduce themselves to the level of the offender, or maybe even lower.

I understand that people say some very stupid things on Twitter and social media, but this mob-with-pitchfork mentality needs to stop. Yes, people are saying some offensive stuff (and I by no means condone the stupidity of her tweet), but most of the time they don’t even mean to convey the message that half of us are interpreting.

The Internet is a breeding ground for hate. It’s as if there are people all over the world just sitting at their computers and phones, waiting for someone to be stupid online. Upon finding something they deem worth attacking, they all unite as one in an unintelligent and usually completely misdirected fury.

There are other options. If you don’t like what a person has said, first try thinking for a moment if it was intentionally hurtful. Then, approach a person in an intelligent, dignified manner, discussing your grievances.

Of course, there’s always option 2: grow some thicker skin and ignore them because there will always be stupid people in the world; get over it, that’s not going to change.

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