Got called out for an old tweet I forgot I even wrote

Last month someone dug up a tweet from 2014 where I made a dumb joke about a musician I didn't even know. Spent two days explaining myself in DMs and it just made things worse. Finally I just apologized plain and simple, no excuses, and the person actually backed off. Has anyone else dealt with people finding stuff from like a decade ago?

2 comments

2 Comments

amy_murphy8526d ago

Yeah I went through something pretty similar last year. Someone found a tweet from 2012 where I made a dumb joke about a TV show I'd never even watched. The worst part was I didn't even remember writing it and had to go read it like five times to figure out what they were so mad about. What worked for me was just saying "you're right, that was a stupid thing to say back then and I shouldn't have posted it" without any of the "well at the time" or "I was young" stuff. People just want to feel heard more than they want you to grovel or explain yourself. The tricky part is knowing when to engage at all versus when to just block and move on. Your mileage may vary but in my experience the simple apology route saves the most time and headache.

patricialee25d ago

Take what Amy said and double down on it because she's right. @amy_murphy85 nailed it with the whole "don't explain yourself" thing. People don't care about your timeline or your excuses, they just want you to nod and say "my bad." The second you start with "I was only 19" or "it was a different time" you look defensive and it makes everything worse. I've seen friends try to reason their way out of old posts and it always drags the drama out for days when a one sentence apology could've killed it in an hour. But the block and move on part is harder than people think because sometimes you gotta figure out if they're actually hurt or just looking for a fight. If they want a fight, don't give them one, just apologize once and walk away.