Agent Unknown
Member
Yet another reason why most celebrities and athletes need to just stay OFF twitter:
The not so great Adventure of Lolo on Twitter
Continuing our lesson of why athletes should never tweet, may we present Lolo Jones, the American hurdler.
Jones is in London preparing for next week's 100-meter hurdles. In the interim, she's been keeping up to date on the progress of Team USA, including the narrow loss by the archery team to Italy in the gold-medal round.
That defeat compelled Ms. Jones to get on Twitter and post a message to her 189,000 followers.
lolojones: "U.S. Men's Archery lost gold medal to Italy but that's ok, we're Americans...When's da Gun shooting competition?"
This tweet would have been insensitive no matter when it was sent. Even if she meant that Americans are good at hunting, the connotation of violence jumps out to everyone. Coming eight days removed from one of the worst gun massacres in United States history makes it even worse. Throw in the fact that a Greek track star was expelled from the Olympics after sending a racist tweet earlier this week and it was like Lolo was competing in a triple jump of stupidity.
She won't get banned from the Olympics because the United States Olympic Commitee doesn't overreact to political pressure like the Greeks did. It should give Lolo some pause about the perils of over-tweeting.
Update: Lolo Jones defended herself from criticism. Note our careful avoidance of the word "apologized."
"sorry u guys only think of violence but I think of all the hunting I do w southerners in da south. Its impressive."
So, there. It's your fault you're thinking of violence while people are still recovering in the hospital from an attack that brought upon the most casualties in American history.