You are what you tweet

You+are+what+you+tweet

The Salaita situation is hard to avoid, particularly if you’re a student at the University. The case has spurred much debate over the question of the seemingly ambiguous “academic freedom,” and what, exactly, it’s supposed to mean.

The case has been wrung dry by those on both sides of the debate. It’s been written, spoken and tweeted countless times over.

Therefore, the intention of this column is not to express the knowledge of my meager two and a half years in the world of higher education, or what my professors and peers have taught me about the definition of academic freedom. For my purpose here, it is irrelevant.

What I wish to explore is the means by which Salaita’s sometimes justified, sometimes inappropriate, fiery remarks were expressed: social media.

As unnecessary as it may seem to attribute the entirety of one’s moral fibers to what they choose to make public via Twitter and Instagram, it’s important to establish the weight and responsibilities we give to social media.

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The revocation of Steven Salaita’s tenured position at the University, in truth, is just one in the growing number of career and work complications at the hands of negative attention on social media. If we look back on the online achievements of the past few years, a good number of controversial hashtag usages come to mind.

The DiGiorno Pizza case took place last week in the midst of the Twitter campaign #WhyIStayed, which was dedicated to domestic abuse survivors and intended to create a sense of solidarity among survivors through the sharing of their stories. DiGiorno threw in what some claimed was poorly played humor when they tweeted “#WhyIStayed You had pizza,” which made light of the issue of domestic abuse.

A second instance of tweets with consequences occurred in late 2013 and involved Justine Sacco, a public relations executive for InterActiveCorp. Sacco was fired for her darkly humored tweet, “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!”

Do all DiGiorno employees believe domestic abuse is worthy of a good laugh, and is Justine Sacco a white supremacist who finds the AIDS virus, and the millions who die of it, hilarious? Likely not. Their tweets themselves are not necessarily an indicator of the sum of all their principles, beliefs, or tastes in humor.

However, their choice to tweet flippantly, and with disregard for consequences, does speak to their personal and intellectual makeup. Particularly because they are public figures.

And, subsequently, much of what we know — or, think we know — about the people in both our immediate and celebrity-worshipping lives is only what we are able to absorb through their consistent, public use of Twitter and other social networking sites.

So, in a way, we are what we tweet.

Twitter’s originally intended use was to enable individuals to share small amounts of densely packed information among a small group of people. The definition of the pre-existing word twitter is, “a short burst of inconsequential information,” and “chirps from birds.” And, according to Twitter’s chairman and co-founder Jack Dorsey, “that’s exactly what the product was.”

So many tweets are of this definitive “inconsequential” nature. A random selection of celebrity tweets will make this fact obvious to any Internet user: Miley tweeting her tongue, Kim Kardashian tweeting her butt, Cher tweeting incomprehensible, cryptic nonsense.

It doesn’t matter. It’s trivial, sometimes stupid, sometimes guiltily enjoyable. But in the end it’s really all a load of crap.

And yet, Kim Kardashian and her sisters tweeting privileged, idiotic selfies is just what we expect of them — that is, their tweets reflect the rich, ditzy personality we’ve come to refer to as their personalities. Their tweets are merely an extension of their being.

As trivial and “inconsequential” as their Internet personalities may be, the tweets and Internet communications of public figures support the personalities and morales we attribute to them over a period of repeat exposures.

Surely we’re not so simple that our personalities and morals can be summed up in a nice, neat package of 140 characters or less. But when we’re public figures — celebrities, financial top-dogs, academics in possession of controversial views — this quickly becomes the case. What we choose to express and share with our followers captures a snapshot of our viewpoint and morals in the moment. And when you’re a public figure, sometimes “in the moment” can mean everything.

Carly is a junior in FAA. She can be reached at [email protected].