I sat down Wednesday planning to write about how smart people can make supremely dumb mistakes on Twitter.
There's the innocent and potentially very expensive ones like Cleveland Browns defensive back Damarious Randall, who put this out on Twitter: "If the Cleveland Cavaliers win the 2018 NBA finals I'll buy everyone who retweets this a jersey." His next Tweet was in response to someone saying there was 0 percent chance he would follow through on it. "100% chance," he replied. Well, as of Wednesday around lunch, there had been more than 842,000 retweets of his original post. At $99.99, his bill would be more than $84 million.
Jay GreesonThere's the insecure need for approval from Bryan Colangelo, who reportedly set up multiple faux Twitter accounts so he could praise his own worth as the president of the Philadelphia 76ers in the NBA while criticizing his team's players.
And amazingly, those monster Twitter miscues do not come close to the biggest Twitter sinner on our collective radar right now.
That less-than-enjoyable spot belongs to Roseanne Barr, of course.
Barr made it easy for the social media morality mob to end the only pro-Trump show on TV. She made inappropriate and racist comments on Twitter about Valerie Jarrett. Those comments were offensive and if I wrote them - on Twitter or here - or if you did, we likely would lose our jobs like Roseanne did.
She dropped a ton of inappropriate and offensive tweets over Memorial Day weekend. She was fired in the immediate backlash despite having a successful run this year with the reboot of her TV show.
The saddest part of this ordeal is the fallout, especially the folks who lost their jobs because Roseanne went Twitter crazy. Think if you landed a gig on a risky reboot that exceeded everyone's expectations. Roseanne's season generated a reported $40 million, and everyone associated with that show surely expected at least a few more seasons.
Then, Roseanne dropped her hate bombs. Those folks now have to hope to find work as rewarding.
Roseanne was wrong, and then she blamed Ambien, a sleep aid. Seriously. The makers of Ambien then posted that "People of all races, religions and nationalities work at Sanofi every day to improve the lives of people around the world. While all pharmaceutical treatments have side effects, racism is not a known side effect of any Sanofi medication."
Sure, there are a slew of folks asking why Roseanne got the axe from the same company that brought back far left-leaning and social-media antagonist Keith Olbermann.
Those musings do not matter in terms of Roseanne. The passing of the buck and the "what about so-and-so" and "how about what they said" questions do not excuse Roseanne's actions. She deserved to be fired.
That said, is it fair to wonder if the folks who are enjoying Roseanne Barr being without a job because of her speech have the same view of Colin Kaepernick not having a job because of exercising his free speech?
Either way, it is the right of employers to decide to part ways with employees who create controversy with words or actions that offend customers. And completely understandable.
Contact Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com and 423-757-6343.