Celebrities might want to tame their Twitter rants in the new year. NASCAR driver Kasey Kahne was the latest celebrity to do a Twitter blunter for which he apologized. In his tweet he criticized public breast-feeding. However, he was not the only one who was flamed on the social network for his opinions.
U.S. congressman Anthony Weiner resigned due to a certain tweet, while the opinions of Ashton Kutcher and comic Gilbert Gottfried caused online controversy. As a result, we can conclude that celebrities and politicians may have seen the dangers of Twitter.
“There was a time from 2008 to 2011 where Twitter was like, whatever was on your mind you tweeted about it — literally mindlessly,” said radio host Cooper Lawrence, who is the author of “The Cult of Celebrity.” “Now you’re going to see the other side of the bell curve, where people are more cautious. Politicians are already more cautious,” she added.
Anthony Weiner made the greatest Twitter blunter in 2011 when he showed a photo of his bulging underwear to a female college student. At first he claimed his account had been hacked, but afterward he admitted he was responsible for the stunt and resigned from his office.
“That guy has become now the patron saint of warning people that communicating from the id, which is exactly what Twitter is designed to do, can end up being a really, really bad idea,” said Bob Thompson, a professor of television and pop culture at Syracuse University.
Gilbert Gottfried lost an important gig when he joked on Twitter: “Japan is really advanced. They don’t go to the beach. The beach comes to them.”