The Rockets fired their social media manager today

Yeah, but the tweet was about putting an old horse out to pasture.

It has nothing to do with being cruel to animals. It's humane.

So I don't know what this whole animal cruelty or animal lover thing is about...

 

Does anyone know if anyone from the Rockets staff has responded yet or are they hiding and waiting for the backlash to blow over?

 

It's joking about killing something people are fond of.

There's really no way to polish that turd in the public eye.

Funny joke on CF.net, insensitive off-color remark to the rest of the world.

 

That's not someone who was actually offended. That's a click-bait site trying to throw a snappy headline out there to make you give them a unique hit. I'm talking about folks who actually say they personally were offended.

DonnyMost, PR spokesman for the entire world besides CF.net. What a guy! Your contacts must be incredible. If only you could show us some.

P.S. I'll just leave this here, again...

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Continually shocked at what isn't common knowledge. Shooting a horse is a HUMANE thing not &quot;animal cruelty.&quot; There's literally a wikiHow</p>&mdash; Rocketgirl (@00rocketgirl) <a href="https://twitter.com/00rocketgirl/status/593774772485423104">April 30, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

That seems like quite the mental gymnastics to dismiss the obvious (DS wouldn't have posted it if it wasn't controversial), but whatever you say. FWIW, there's a person (who actually works for Deadspin) saying they're offended in the comments.

Any reason you're being a colossal jerk here? Do you have a personal connection with the ex-employee or something? I don't remember you being this confrontational over such silly things.

Same stuff the last guy posted. Same response from me. In the public eye, it doesn't matter. Joking about killing horses, dogs, cats, etc (nevermind the fact it was pretty poor sportsmanship) is going to go over like a wet fart to many people, especially when broadcasted from so high a perch.

You can laugh at me as some self-elected representative of the human race if you want, but I'm only basing this conclusion on observed outcomes from similar circumstances. If you think I'm full of crap, so be it, but I would advise against testing to see if I'm right.

____


I don't really have any attachment to horses, so I'm not qualified there... but, if the Texans were playing the Browns, and the Texans Twitter guy posted that same tweet with a dog instead of a horse, I'd be pretty put-off by it.

I'm a dog lover, and had to put down my dog before. It was a seriously heartbreaking experience, and anyone mocking that or making fun of it (indirectly) would make me scowl.

____

At the end of the day, I still see this as I did when I first heard about it. A highly replaceable employee in a highly coveted position is going to have to walk a very thin line. He didn't walk that line, now he's gone. Les Alexander's personal opinion of horses may have something to do with it, but it's not like this is a totally irregular outcome given the circumstances.

 

Donny, the whole animal abuse angle doesn't make sense to me, not unless we can agree they just didn't care for chad, since he's just a regular employee and not a basketball-playing one. Clyde got off with just a conversation between he and the FO.

 

I don't consider it a play on animal abuse.

However, when you're sending out a message to that many people, some will undoubtedly miss the nuance of why it isn't animal abuse.

 

Thanks, we're finally to one person! The reason I'm hammering away at this is to TRY and help folks distinguish true controversy from fauxrage, so that maybe this won't happen as often. Clay Travis has had some great columns on this, if you want to Google it.

Just because Deadspin or TBL puts up a story doesn't mean there's necessarily an actual controversy where thousands of people are genuinely upset. It often means they see the potential for folks on Twitter to find a tweet/headline as superficially curious and give them a click. In other words, it's a media-driven "controversy" for the sake of boosting clicks, not a true public outcry. Unfortunately, many older and not-web-savvy executives don't understand the difference.

In the end, I think the vast majority of people -- and not just here on CF.net -- did not see this as an offense that should lead to someone losing their job. They saw it as a curiousity, and that led to it getting traction with the Deadspin and TBLs of the world. However, at least from my vantage point, I didn't see many people who were truly hurt by the tweet and wanting justice. (Oddly enough, the only rage I saw at all about it came from Dallas, which tells me it was less about horses and more about finding an excuse to grind an ax against the rival franchise/city that just knocked their team out of the playoffs.)

No different than Clutch -- I just know the guy from covering the Rockets. He's a kind person who is very good at his job.

Testing? I'm asking. You seem to be making a connection between high corporate executive decisions and the "public eye" that I don't think is there. I'm sure other folks have been dismissed under similar circumstances. That doesn't make it right or representative of what the public actually thought. All that proves is some conservative 65-year-old exec VP who doesn't even have his own Twitter is making paranoid, fear-driven decisions because some tabloid site mentioned his company. I think most people were smart enough to understand where Chad was going, and thus weren't personally offended.

I think most people in the public are smarter than what you -- as well as many corporate executives -- appear to be giving them credit for.

Horses to dogs is a fairly apples to oranges comparison.

This was Chad's fourth season with the team, and he was well known as the online voice of the franchise. I don't think that's highly replaceable, as evidenced by the immense outcry on Twitter from literally every single @HoustonRockets tweet these days. I think he earned respect and leeway with his admirable performance over the past four years (actually won several awards for it). You're right that he had to walk a very thin line -- and it's an organizational strategy that put him there. He wasn't freelancing with his online voice. The Rockets love being edgy. They love using humor and pop culture. They love going to the border of whatever "the line" is -- note the whole King James graphic stuff from back in March, which was done by their graphics team. Here's the thing about being edgy, though: when you try new things that don't always conform to the mainstream standard, occasionally you're going to misfire and find yourself on the other side. Inherent nature of the equation.

If any person does great work at their job for many years, I'd feel bad for them if their rope is as short as two emojis.

 

Don't know if it's been posted but Dan Le Batard had the guy on just a few minutes ago and he offered to let him run their official twitter account this weekend including the draft tonight! Pretty awesome opportunity!

 

IT'S HERE!

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">So 37 people will be wearing this throughout town
<a href="http://t.co/3tna77Gt31">http://t.co/3tna77Gt31</a>
I so want one, who wants to buy me a <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BringChadBack?src=hash">#BringChadBack</a> tee...</p>&mdash; Josh (JR) Reese (@MrJoshua) <a href="https://twitter.com/MrJoshua/status/593892732390608897">April 30, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

It is funny that while they thought they were attacking the faceless Rockets which is free game all they ended up doing is getting one of their own fired.

 

I am so close to buying that.......Damn.

 

Only snag is that they don't print it until may 7th. I want the thing now

 

Are you going to the game? We need people going to the game to wear that shiz.

 

should become the unofficial tshirt of future rockets v mavs games

 

its more of a shirt i would wear to Dallas or to future Mavs games. By monday we will probably all be past all of this and ready for the Spurs or Clippers

For anyone ordering this note that it doesnt print until May 7th, so you wont even get it until the middle of month.

 

Which is why nothing makes sense here..

I'm sure many complained about Clyde, but the team didn't feel the need to give in to a small group of sensitive people, but now they do? Only Mavs fans complained. The media on twitter basically poked fun at it, when they tweeted about it. the majority of people brushed it off, so it's not like the team had to fire him because there was no coming back from this.

The only thing i thought of, initially, was that he had been warned before. According to recent interview, Chad said they had, so maybe that's it, but even then you'd think they'd suspend him first. If someone is a good employee you try to keep them and build up to termination. You only jump ahead if a) you want to fire him or B) public outcry is too much to control....it wasn't B, so maybe there's something more to this.

 

Holy crap DonnyMost is being a tool right now. It wasn't even about horses, it was about the mavs players. I doubt there is a single person genuinely offended by the tweet. But if there are, GOOD. Maybe it will help make them a little more tough in life.

 

Here's where the knee jerk supporters of this guy need to shut up because it is all over

 

If you want to play that game, 30+ people "favorited" the comment expressing disgust/distaste. Clearly many thought it was in poor taste. Why you refuse to acknowledge this is odd.

I don't feel all that strongly about him being fired or not fired, to be honest with you. But clearly you do, so, rock on.

It's a chicken-egg argument. What came first, the controversy, or the media coverage? I didn't see the tweet getting blown out of proportion, like some kinda of NBA Benghazi. It just looked quite unseemly when taken and placed under the microscope. Deadspin's headline for that post was "Yeeeeesh", not "NBA EMPLOYEE PROMOTES ANIMAL ABUSE"... I'm sorry, but I just don't see it as click-bait. At least not it's very effective click-bait (which is a label that can be used on almost anything). And the content of the post had almost no commentary... so it's hard to say they were sensationalizing anything.

Now who is speaking for everyone?

Of course Dallas was the most butthurt. If the Mavs account posted a Rocket exploding as they booted us out of the playoffs, we'd be up in arms too.

I think what happened is a perfectly reasonable thing to fire someone over. I also think it's perfectly reasonable to reprimand that person and continue with them on staff. I can't put myself in the manager's shoes here. There may have been other considerations.

This explains a lot. Perfectly understandable to advocate for a friend. Just don't make me the enemy.

Yes. IOW, don't go making any Ol' Yeller references in your first article for ESPN.

Asking what?

I have no doubt most understood his intent (which was still in poor taste and a show of poor sportsmanship). However, you're broadcasting far and wide enough to where the number of people receiving the message who might not get it is substantial. I haven't been following the thread much, has this whole VP thing been corroborated? Seems kind of odd for such a high level dude to make such a micro-managey decision, but then again I'm not familiar with the Rockets Org chart.

Eh. Not a bet I'd want to side with you on. Regardless of Joe Six-Pack taking it the wrong way, there were other problems with the tweet.

You'd think so, but no. As I said, I have no personal attachment to horses, but they have some serious cache with people for some reason. Remember when Barbaro broke his leg? That was THE sports story of 2006. It mystified me as to why people cared so much. It sounds silly to talk about it on this level, but there's a real connection there. It's just not ground I would tread on heavily as a social media guru.

I feel bad for him, sure. Everyone makes mistakes. But mistakes have consequences. He seems to be handling it with grace, so good on him. If he's as good as purported to be, then he'll have no trouble finding more work. We'll have to agree to disagree about the replaceable part. You can be good and still replaceable. It's a highly sought after job, and they'll get another good person to do it.