Bruce Irvin’s April Fools’ Mistake Is Something We Are All Guilty Of
My former high school basketball coach is not someone who I am particularly fond of.
I can vividly remember many of the insults he threw at me. He also benched me my senior year after I was the starting PG as a junior under the previous coach. I’m a few years out of high school now, so I’d like to think I’m over how I got screwed that season, but I did something a few months back which confirmed that I am not.
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I tweeted at him. It was a tweet that included some less-than-flattering commentary.
Spiteful? Absolutely. Immature? You bet. A mistake that should change the way people look at me, and be something that defines me as a person? Not so much.
My point is, this obsession with over-policing of what people say in their lapses in judgement by internet social justice warriors is getting out of hand. I told you my moment of social media idiocy. What’s yours? We all have one…. if not more than one.
On April Fools’ Day, Bruce Irvin joked that he had received a DUI. Here are a few responses to his tweet (language warning):
And it didn’t stop there. Cover32 wrote an article on the issue, and despite an update at the bottom which reads, “All I have done here is re-state what Irvin has said himself on social media and pass along a rumor.”, the writer subjectively calls Irvin a bully, and suggests his release from the Seattle Seahawks.
"“Perhaps it’s better to just cut their losses with some guys…”"
He also takes this tweet from Irvin, “Lol man I swear if yall knew Bruce from 03 to about 07 u would know what a thug was lol”, and writes, “To top it off he’s bragging about how much of a thug he used to be in the bad old days.”
To jump to the conclusion that Irvin is “bragging” here is quite the stretch. People were calling him “thug”, among other more malicious names, and Irvin was pointing out (rightly so, I might add), that making a joke (even if it offends a few people) does not make you any of these juvenile insults.
Now this isn’t to say that I think what Bruce Irvin said was smart, because it wasn’t. Nor was it particularly comical, but that’s beside the point. The joke is probably indicative of a learning process that he is still going through. But again, who isn’t going through a learning process?
And before the comments section get flooded with responses to the effect of, “BUT YOU ARE JUDGING THE JUDGERS!!! SO THAT MAKES YOU JUST AS BAD!!!!! LMAO SMH”, I get that what I’m doing is hypocritical because I’m telling the people calling Irvin out what they shouldn’t say.
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I guess there is no good answer to the problem of overzealous, keyboard-heroes of social justice. Because to criticize them is to literally lower yourself to their level, making you a hypocrite.
So this will be the last article, comment or tweet I will be posting on the issue, but I hope what you got from this is that this trend of people waiting for someone to mess up and looking for things to be offended by needs to stop. Fortunately, I have not had to go through the tragedy of losing someone to drunk driving. But what I can say, is that if I had, trying to prevent everyone in the world from ever uttering the phrases “drunk driving” or “DUI” would not help me heal.
So take it easy people. Social media is a place where lots of things are said, and little thought goes into them. It is a place that we can use to create a persona for ourselves, and make our messy lives look all neat-and-tidy. But it also can capture us at our most honest and transparent moments.
Mistakes will be made, and allowing yourself to have an emotional reaction to ALL of them, and calling for heads to roll for every slip-up, is the worst thing you can do.
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