Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Twitter Hate Post Against Football Player Makes Baltimore Woman Most Hated

Oh, the perils of getting too wrapped up in your fandom, too wrapped up in your Twitter account, too......despicable.

A woman named Katie Moody is probably the most hated woman in Baltimore now and rightly so.
Supposedly, this woman sent the most vile Tweet
about a Baltimore Ravens player whose brother died.

See, she's a New England Patriots fan and was upset that her beloved Patriots lost to the Baltimore Ravens Sunday. (And yes, I'm aware there were some questionable calls in the game by the substitute refs.)

Ravens receiver Torrey Smith played well, for 127 yards and two touchdowns. This despite the fact is younger brother died in a motorcycle accident hours earlier. He apparently dedicated the game to his lost brother.

I don't know how anybody could play football at a time like that, but there's no rules for grieving. You gotta get through it however you can and that's what Smith seems to be doing. I know everyone extends their condolences to him.

Except our buddy Katie.  Unless it was some hacker that did this, she saw fit to Tweet: "Hey, Smith. How about you call your bro and tell him about your wi---ohhh, wait. @toosoon"

Hint: If you need to use the hashtag "too soon" it probably is. Shut up, already, Katie.

Her Twitter account is open only to invitees, so it's impossible for me to find out what other pearls of wisdom our Katie has.

I think the problem here is that too many people feel like they have to be super provocative on social media to be noticed. Which is true. But what they forget is the words you write are not an abstraction. Real people read what you say. And are affected by what you write. A lot of people lose sight of that.

The people who react to the stupid things you write also react rashly. So you get this endless loop of hate that goes and goes until everyone is exhausted.

Blacksportsonline reported that Katie initially defended her Tweet, to the tune of "Everybody is doing it," which I guess makes it  fine in her mind. She later sort of apologized for the Tweet as everybody piled on her.

According to the Daily What, Katie is a senior administrator at John Hopkins School of Medicine. At least for now.  There apparently is some public pressure on John Hopkins to fire her. We'll see if there's grounds for that, and if so, whether it happens.

Here's what John Hopkins spokesman Dennis O'Shea had to say, according to the Baltimore Sun:

 “Our deepest sympathies are with Torrey Smith and his family. The social media comment that made light of the Smith family’s loss represented the thoughts of one individual. It does not in any way represent the Johns Hopkins community.”
When asked whether or not Moody would face any disciplinary actions for her social media comments, O’Shea responded: “I don’t think we really have anything to say on this subject other than what I sent you.”

I'm sure there will be updates to this story.


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