11 November 2011

Spankings

i took one last look at the twitter the other night and watched with trepidation as Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) made a huge fail.

Remember Swistles Giant Internet Hand of Spanking? It's theory was put into practice right before my eyes.

He handled it as best he could with an immediate contrite and sincere apology. He went as far as to retweet the spankings that others posted to him. I am a little horrified at how judgy people became, how quickly they jumped, and how vitriolic they were.

When I read the initial tweet, decrying the firing of a certain coach, I thought "Hmm, I wonder what that's about?" Also, I was kind of waiting for a follow-up tweet. A joke, a clarification, something. Sure enough, the next one was an apology.

My first impulse was to tweet "Dude, read the headlines & delete the tweet."  It's incredibly sad to me that others impulses were to call names and judge.  Did not one of them think "Gosh, he's usually not like this. Something must be wrong."?

I guess my whole rant is that everyone needs to take a breath before posting on the interweb.

And I still will be a fan of his.  Because I hope that when I eff up next, I handle it the way he did.  With sincerity, contrition, and humor.

4 comments:

Swistle said...

I get panicky at the way people are so quick to leap VICIOUSLY on a slip-up or mistake or human failing. It feels like it's PERFECTION OR NOTHING---and as if people are HOPING for something they can attack.

I hope the same as you: that when I have my inevitable slip-ups/mistakes/failings, that I'll handle them with grace and good humor.

Swistle said...

Oh, AND AND AND!! The "He/She isn't usually like this, I wonder what's going on?" reaction is one I wonder about, too! Where IS that reaction? Why isn't there MORE of it? But no: it goes right to the vicious attack!

Bibliomama said...

Well said. I fling around the link to the giant internet hand of spanking at the slightest provocation. I have never been an Ashton Kutcher fan, and I'm still not, but it's sure as heck not because of this.

Surely said...

the tweet stated that it was posted from his Ipad so I just pictured him realizing the error and panicking.