Twitter sure makes it easy to look hateful in front of a lot of people.
Every tweet you make provides a very public touch point which — taken together — begin to define your digital reputation.
Take a look at the controversy surrounding Orlando Jones, a self-described artist.
His call for liberals to kill Sarah Palin has embroiled him in a war of words via Twitter.
Although he has tried to play down the intent in his tweet, he is still unapologetic. I’m not really sure of what Jones has done lately (is he the guy on the old 7-Up commercials and from the movie “Drumline“?) and I’m assuming a lot of the American public are as uneducated as I am regarding his artistic contributions to society. So that means this controversy is probably one of the few things they have even heard of about him. Unfortunately for Jones, it also means the baseline for his reputation is defined by this event.
His continual involvement in the self-induced controversy has produced a few interesting observations.
He does a thin job of taking some heat off of his comments using:
- the cover of being an artist, whose job it is to “hold a mirror” up to society
- the cover of his right to free speech under the First Amendment
- an interesting positive phrase, “I agree to disagree“
He doubles down on the hateful comment by refusing to apologize and offers the lame excuses:
- the comment was “farcical” and not a call to action
- too much energy is being wasted on the comment and not for the common good
- his comment has no political affiliation
Jones is finding out, just like the Dixie Chicks, that when you decide to involve yourself in political discussion, you had better be ready for the fallout when you say something hateful or controversial.
