Twitter is one of the most popular social media outlets out there. Whether you just follow others or compose tweets yourself, Twitter seems ubiquitous these days. While it is all the rage for maintaining a public profile, it has backfired for a lot of people.
If you aren’t careful what you are tweeting, oh boy, it can ruin your life. Just look at these people as examples and take heed to their tales of how social media ruined their lives. You might want to look before you leap (or tweet).
1.) Connor Riley was offered a job at Cisco when she tweeted “Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work.” Cisco employees saw the tweet and suffice to say, Connor Riley never had to worry about that commute.
2.) Gabriella Pasqualotto, a cheerleader for several cricket teams went to Twitter to give details about how poorly the players treated the cheerleaders. This angered team owners and she was promptly fired.
3.) Even if Rashard Mendenhall’s intentions were good, his execution of this tweet following the death of Osama bin Laden didn’t sit too well with most Americans – “What kind of person celebrates death? It’s amazing how people can HATE a man they have never even heard speak. We’ve only heard one side…”
4.) Damian Goddard, a Toronto based sportscaster was fired after he posted some oddly political tweets about same-sex marriage that got him in hot water.
5.) Australian Olympic swimmer Stephanie Rice lost her sponsorship with Jaguar automobiles after she tweeted homophobic slurs in response to an Australian rugby victory over South Africa.
6.) Larry Johnson found himself in quite a pickle after tweeting homophobic slurs and calling his head coach, Todd Haley out on Twitter. Shortly after, he was out of the NFL.
7.) Scott Bartosiewicz was fired for a simple misunderstanding. He worked as a social media strategist for Chrysler and accidentally tweeted profane language via their account when he meant to do it from his personal account. Whoops!
8.) Comedian Gilbert Gottfried was fired from voicing the Aflac duck after he tweeted insensitive jokes in the wake of the Japanese tsunami. While it hasn’t ruined his comedy career, you will no longer hear his voice when watching Aflac commercials.
9.) Nicole Crowther was an actress who worked on the set of Glee for a period of time before she started tweeting out plot spoilers. When show producers saw what she had done, they tweeted this to her, “Hope you’re qualified to do something besides work in entertainment.” Then she was fired.
10.) How could anyone forget Anthony Weiner? The man made legendary by his Twitter fiasco can never be forgotten. He tweeted lewd pictures of himself to his followers and has basically become the laughingstock of the political world.
Social media is a wonderful tool, but remember: whatever you put on it is out there for anyone to see… pretty much forever. So the next time you get a new job, try not to compose any terrible tweets about your new employers.
