185: When Past Tweets Come Back to Haunt You: Tinx and Twitter

Recently, I posted this question to TikTok. Do you follow any online influencers and feel as if you're watching a shipwreck in real time and you get a little nervous for them? Is it just me? Well, do you? Other people on TikTok certainly did. Welcome to the Indestructible PR Podcast, where we use current events and tested media and PR strategies to help prevent or manage a crisis and build an indestructible reputation. When it comes to social media, we all make mistakes. From time to time, my hand is raised. Whether it's tweeting something without fully thinking it through or posting a photo that later makes us cringe, we've all fallen victim to the hazards of not being careful online. On the podcast this week, what do you do, however, when a past post comes back to haunt you? Specifically, let's talk about Twitter. Whether you're a celebrity or just an average person like me, chances are that your past tweets or posts have come back to haunt you at some point and if not haunt, perhaps concern you. What Whether they contain inappropriate comments or lewd photos or just something taken wildly out of context, there's always the risk that your old tweets could resurface and create a PR crisis for you. It has happened to a number of people in the public space. People who are just regular people who are then thrust into the public space, and then people who live in that world of entertainment and culture and news. For example, there was Teen Vogue Editor in Chief or former Teen Vogue Editor in Chief Alexia McCammon. I had mentioned her previously on the podcast. She was a former Axios reporter who was hired to be the head of Teen Vogue. And then some of those tweets back when she was younger came to light and she was no longer the editor in chief of Teen Vogue. Or perhaps you remember comedian Kevin Hart. He had to step down as the host of the Oscars in 2018. Over past tweets that resurfaced from 2015, he was slammed for being homophobic, which now, in light of Will Smith, would this still apply? My How Culture Changes There was also in 2015, Trevor Noah when he was first announced as the host of the Daily Show. He was initially celebrated, if you remember, and then the Twitterverse found out he had posted tweets that were labeled as anti Semitic, anti Israel, so that caused a lot of backlash for him. If you are a Blake Shelton fan, you may remember that he was voted People's Sexiest Man Alive. Or are you voted? Or are you just appointed in 2017. Then Twitter took over and they found some past tweets that were less than PC. Some of them were quite sexist and racist. And then in 2015, the rapper Iggy Azalea was forced to drop out of a Pittsburgh Pride event after several LGBTQ groups called her performance into question because of ding ding past tweets that were deemed racist and homophobic. The question that I posted in the Open on TikTok, I was specifically asking about online influencers. When I asked that question, I posed it because there were two online influencer who I follow that seem to be spiraling. And I had to put it out into the TikTok universe. But not surprising, I received several comments with other names which led me to start digging. Now, my question was on a platform filled with millennials and members of Gen Z, so I had absolutely no idea who some of the names were. And I'm ashamed to admit it, but hey, this is it happens in the public sphere. One person had mention mentioned Chelsea H. And my Gen X brain immediately went to Chelsea Handler, which I put down there. And I'm sure this young millennial on the other end was thinking, no, you idiot, it was a Chelsea versus a modern warrior dust up on TikTok. But there was Carolyn Callat Way, which I knew about that one. There was Becca from the Bachelor. I knew about that one. Someone had talked about coffee baristas. There was a lot of push back on them when they outdoor roast their customers online. But one name that stood out, who embodied this issue of the question that I had asked, I wasn't thinking about because I had no idea that she was going through it. I knew the name, but I did not know the tweet crisis. The name at the top, Tanks. Do you know who that is? No. Well, hello, Boomer and fellow Gen Xer. No worries. Even if you don't know who she is, you should keep listening because there's a lesson embedded in the story. Who is Tanks? Tanks is a mega social media influencer. Her name is Christina Najjar and she is better known online as Tanks. She is a content creator who came of age during a time when a lot of mega influencers made it big on TikTok, and that was during the pandemic. She gives advice on everything, on relationships, mental health. She sells affiliate links, so she has clothes products. You know, she's a typical influencer where she really got big. Her niche is she talked about starter packs like Long Island Mom Starters Pack, Beverly Hills Mom Starter Pack. So they were cute, they were clever. And they were different. And that's all you need to be on TikTok to stand out. So the crisis has been bubbling for some time. So tanks first came under fire when some of her 2020 tweets emerged, some of which she wrote, some she liked, some she retweeted. So when people get on something, they are on it online. So on the one side, it did portray her more conservative political leanings and ideologies. Does that make a PR crisis? No. But it probably didn't mesh with a lot of her followers. Now the tweets first came to light. I've mentioned this place before. On Reddit there's a subreddit called Tanks Snark. So there's a lot of snark reddits out there and it was amplified on a substack. These are emails called Scrolling with Sophie. And she laid out the case for why Tinks should have a problem online. So the political leaning ones, she shared posts by Donald Trump Jr. Eric Trump. Also some messaging from the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson from the uk. Also a post slamming the governor of California, Gavin Newsom about taking lockdown measures to prevent the spread of the virus. But more troubling, and this is where most people get in trouble, is when they really start to target and shame people online. Remember Christy Teigen when she was shaming people like say Lohan and other C list D list celebrities? She is still in PR purgatory. She has not fully recovered. So tanks her tweets. One example was this one. It even hurts to read it because now I'm a. I'm a fan of this person. I wasn't before, but now I really am. Kim Kardashian is so fat I don't know what to do with myself. Hashtag oops. And that was tweeted in January of 2012. Other posts Lindsay is wearing my dress on TV. She looks fat. We assume this is Lindsay lohan. This was 2013. She also posted in 2013 fat people at Coachella. LOL. And one of the more hurtful ones. And I'm saying this from a gen x Beverly Hills 90210 point of view. Who is Tori Spelling? She seems really ugly and pathetic. Ah, that's awful. So now people eventually found out and again it all starts on Reddit and I pulled an example of someone had posted. Check out my video. Tinks is a fat phobic, xenophobic and a Republican. That was on TikTok. So when someone takes note of something and they take note on a viral platform, then watch out. So when one's reputation is on the line, one needs to respond. And Tinks, being the social savvy thinker that she is, replied. She went straight to Instagram, natch. She posted some stories, and I only know this because of the replies on my TikTok. I never would have known this about this PR crisis at all. Even though I was fully familiar with who she was, I did not know that she was dealing with first. She did do a Q and A on Instagram Stories. That's where you can ask a question of someone, someone will put in a question box and she. Or a statement box. And she did that and it stated, please just address the 2020 tweet. So someone had asked her this question and she started answering on Instagram. I would assume that some brand dumped her or she was starting to lose revenue, her earth was starting to shift, her foundation was getting rocked. Perhaps she hired a PR person. I would assume that she did because she had to craft an apology. So I'm going to read her apology that she posted in the Notes app and posted it to Instagram, and I'm going to run it through the indestructible PR framework to determine if we think her reputation is going to survive. Now, if you're still with me and you still have no idea who Tinks is, you want to stay for this, because the framework can apply to anyone. And even if you don't know who she is, you can now follow along to see if it works. So I'm going to read the post and then let's run it through the framework. All right, so here we go. I always say, if you're not cringing at yourself a year ago, you aren't growing. I'm more than cringing, slash, I'm beyond embarrassed. And I want to take accountability right there. We're starting with step one, the own it phase. And she has one of those big A words, accountability, going on. Guys, I effed up. But she did not write effed up because after all, she's a millennial on TikTok. Guys, I effed up and I'm going to own it. Hey, right there, she has the words. And be direct with you. I really needed to be deliberate about what I wanted to say, so this wasn't just a reaction. All right, next step two. About 10 years ago. Now she's going to explain it. About 10 years ago, I sent some truly nasty, mean, horrible tweets. Editor's note. Yes, they were. I called people that I had never met fat, pathetic, and ugly. I even called Kim Kardashian fat, which is ironic considering she is my number one idol and person I look up to. When I read the tweets back, I am ashamed and embarrassed. They are mean spirited and I am not mean spirited, but I used to be. Let me tell you about the girl who wrote these tweets. She's still explaining. Now she's putting these tweets into context about who she was. Back to the apology. I was 21 and deeply, deeply insecure. I hated myself and I had a bad relationship with my body. I was also extremely lost. I've told you guys about that before, about being so lost and wanting to find a passion and wanting to find my voice. So I tried on many hats, one of which was mean tweeter, to get a laugh. And it's not funny at all. Only insecure people punch down and only deeply insecure people try to make others the butt of the joke. Being mean is not funny, it's just plain mean. Hurt people, hurt people. And I know my words caused hurt. If you've been following me for even a little bit, you know that they are not representative of who I am. I am very sorry. I am a work in progress. Now, for those listeners of the podcast, you know that there are three steps to the indestructible PR plan. The third step being promise it. What are you going to promise? What are you going to plan moving forward? I'm going to give Tinks a. I don't even think I'm going to give her a like on this one or a heart. I am a work in progress. Is her promising that she is going to try and change, but that's it. There's nothing else there. She did not make any promise to change her ways at all. So she's 2/3 there. This is probably a C + apology. Most of the apology was spent on the explanation, on the context, which by the way, what a lot of people want to do, they usually want to start there. So I'm going to give her credit for starting with with the owning it and really owning how horrible these tweets were. She spent an awfully long time explaining it, but what she missed, she just plain missed it. We didn't hear about what she was going to do in the future. She also did not address her ideology, her political leanings at all. Does she need to? Not necessarily, but it's just to note that she completely glossed over it. So even after her Twitter gaffes went viral and it did cause a major PR crisis for her brand. And that's what she is. Even if you don't know who she is, she's making money off of her name and her reputation. It is not surprising that it fell a little bit short. She still has an edgy brand, obviously that she wanted to keep and she didn't want to make any promises about cleaning it up. And it does seem that she is content to remain mostly the same person. She want to just clean up that one piece of it. And that was the mean tweets. Because the PR memory is a bit of a loop. People don't forget and what really doesn't forget is the Internet. So in a way, from a, I don't know, bold influencer point of view, there's some admiration there. She's just sticking to her brand. She's very comfortable in her own skin and she doesn't feel the need to change who she is for anyone else. Of course, it also means she'll probably continue to be the person, the influencer with the mean tweets. And some people will never forget that. And likely, if someone were to go on her back end or look at the analytics on an outside platform, you can see how many followers you lose. She likely lost many. Now, for the rest of us, those of us who are not making all of our money being a social media influencers, these types of mistakes can really come back to haunt in a big way. Especially if you are active on platforms like Twitter or you no longer are, but your tweets still have a life. When that happens, things can quickly spin out of control if you are not prepared. And that's what I'm about is making sure that you are prepared if something does happen. So to deal with past tweets that might cause problems to your public image, first try to identify the issue at hand and how serious it could be. Really look at it like, how bad is it if you are fat shaming someone, that's a mean tweet. If any of your tweets are mean, they deserve to come back to haunt you, honestly. So consider that serious and put it in the serious bucket. Now, if this involves something that you posted a long time ago you're no longer involved with, then you may not need to be concerned if it was a different lifetime, if you will. However, if the problem lies in recent tweets of yours or comments that could paint you in a negative light, then you want to take swift action and you want to try and mitigate any potential damage. So for example, if you have some controversial tweets that are stored up and you think it might look bad to a potential employer, or if you have clients of yours who are looking at, you know, your background, then you may want to do some damage control by implementing certain PR strategies. So if you are outed, you're going to need to do something. If you're not outed, you can clean it up. There are apps out there that will allow you to mass delete your tweets. I downloaded one of these apps and I think I'll put a link in the show notes for you to use it. And I went back to my tweets and I didn't have anything. I didn't have anything wonderful by any means. And I certainly wasn't prolific when I started on Twitter. And most of my tweets were just downright simple and dumb. They didn't mean a lot. It was me just trying it out, but nothing that I feel could harm my reputation. But if you have a tweet out there that could, you want to make sure that you delete it. If you don't, what do you do? And in every podcast, I always offer an indestructible tip. These are the tips for you to clean up your reputation, protect your reputation, and most important, create an indestructible reputation. Our indestructible tip is going to be the steps that you need to take if you have offending tweets that come to light. Number one, delete the offending tweets. Get rid of them. Yes, Twitter has a life. People can screenshot, the Internet lives forever. But deleting a tweet and someone seeing this tweet no longer exists is a statement, okay? It shows that you no longer agree with what you posted. Step two, apologize if necessary. And in most cases, it is necessary. And you are going to need to apologize or take accountability, Admit it, own it in whatever space that you need to do that, depending on who you are and depending on how severe the issue is. Step three, let's move on, okay? We don't need to dwell here. We don't need to spend a lot of time here. If it happened on Twitter, hey, here's the bonus. Twitter's fast, it's moving. It's constantly changing. So is your crisis. Step four, monitor your Twitter account more closely in the future and more recently. Are people still tweeting it? Are people still talking about it? Is it still a part of a conversation? If so, you need to repeat step two and the last step. Learn from your mistake. That's the best thing in life, in business, in anything, right? And most important, in our world, in my world, your reputation. All mistakes can be recovered, especially if you learn from them. Remember, no one is perfect. We all make mistakes. If you find yourself in a situation where old tweets are coming back to haunt you, take a deep breath and follow those tips. Be proactive, take the steps to address the issue, and then you can minimize the damage and move on. That's all for this week on the podcast. Thanks for listening. Bye for now.