The Rockets fired their social media manager today

"shh it'll be over soon" is not automatically a rape joke. it is also something you could say to a child in war-torn Kosovo, or during a violent rain storm. Dorothy could have said that to Toto during the tornado. or to AN OPPONENT DURING AN ELIMINATION GAME perchance

 

Even if so, they're both benefiting.

 

Ok, I really don't think he should have been fired either, but let's be honest, that was a reference to rape and in bad taste. It's a well known expression (especially to someone who is a social media expert like he is) that rapists often use on their victims. There's no way around it. I am surprised more people didn't make that to be the issue over the stupid emoji.

There's only a few things probably off limits in social media. Minorities, anything around female sexuality, and victims of horrible events or crimes.

Do I think he should have been fired for it? No. Because that's not how you make things better. But he should definitely know why it was in bad taste.

 

it could be a reference to rape, but its definitely a reference to mavs fans watching their team's season end

 

Do you think i'm actually being dishonest or is that your rhetorical style? Is there really "no way around it" or is it that you think there is "no way around it" because that is the conclusion you've drawn?

 

Do you know what he was warned for? Would love to know, as the legend of Chad continues.

 

No, I dont. He's had a couple zingers this year thrown at opponent's Twitter accts, maybe one of those.

 

He was definitely more edgy for an NBA account.

& Thanks for the quick response as always.

 

Simple mistake, have the right to **** up and not lose your job.

 

Honestly didn't know it was a rape reference. I thought he was referencing shooting a pony.

 

Houston Rockets twitter account immediately becomes boring.

 

Just ignore it, he is wrong. There are plenty of people who did not get that reference or make that connection, and he is making a massive assumption that Chad thinks like him.

Ridiculous.

DD

 

It's not (at least it wasn't in this context). People are ridiculous.

 

Its not. Its just r****ds looking for attention

 

My thoughts exactly. Overly sensitive one day and act as if nothing they did impacted someone's life negatively. Emojis...seriously?!?

 

I don't think he should have been fired and I haven't read thru all of this thread to find out if there is a mention of it. But I wonder if he could have gotten his point across and it would have been much more funnier and basically had the same context as the gun pointed at the horse head.If he would have referred to The Walking Dead when Carol told Lizzie to just look at the flowers.

 

This whole thing just shines a highlight on our current culture of fake social media outrage. The theory that someone *might* be offended sends a slew of people on the internet into a tizzy on behalf of of the "aggrieved" whether they actually exist of not.

There are actually quite a few articles on this phenomenon. An industry of fake indignation through social media landscape when the population of people actually offended is either very tiny or non-existent.

 

Completely disagree. How would you know what the rapists' mantra is? Is there a study that has compiled a list from victims?

It seems to me that it's the contemplated rapist mantra by folks imagining what a rapist might say. Or, perhaps what characters in books or movies say.

To me it doesn't logically make sense that someone committing a brutal crime would at the same time offer comforting words. Are the people making this connection offering rape fantasy or rape reality? I think it's the former.

 

It's obvious to any reasonable person that this wasn't a rape reference.

 

Tad Brown was on 790 this morning, and he commented on this briefly. I'm sure the podcast will be up soon.

Anyway, this is a more succinct version of my posts from yesterday:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Rockets mishandling of how they fired social media guy is another example of companies whose execs don't understand it well. Very common.</p>&mdash; Stephanie Stradley (@StephStradley) <a href="https://twitter.com/StephStradley/status/594133547574644736">May 1, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

That's a big part of why I feel bad for Chad -- I see this problem first-hand. I run social media for a couple relatively-big accounts, and the executives I report to have absolutely zero understanding of the context or what success in that medium truly means and entails. They don't even try. As I said yesterday, there's a huge gulf between actual controversy and Twitter fauxrage, and in this case, the Rockets/NBA actually created the former by not understanding the latter. It's just sad all the way around.