I used to pile on public figures for old tweets until I found some of my own from 10 years ago

Last month I was digging through my old Facebook posts and cringed at a joke I made about a celebrity's divorce that I now realize was just cruel. How do you balance holding people accountable for bad takes versus accepting that people change over time?

2 comments

2 Comments

kai_park5d ago

Accepting that people change over time" is the part that gets me. I found a tweet from 2012 where I called a politician a total idiot for something they said, and now I agree with that same politician on almost everything. I think we all say dumb stuff when we are young, especially online where we think nobody will look later. The real issue for me is that some old tweets are just bad jokes that aged poorly, while others show someone was actually bigoted. I try to judge each person case by case now because I got burned once by jumping on someone for a decade old joke that was just in bad taste not hateful. If the person shows real growth and apologizes for the old stuff, I let it go. But if they double down and say the same junk now, then its a different story.

piper_burns5d ago

Does anyone remember when people used to post those "notes" on Facebook where you'd fill in your favorite colors and stuff? I found one of mine from 2009 where I said my favorite band was Nickelback. At the time it was just a guilty pleasure thing, but now everyone laughs at me for it. That's not the same as having hateful views though. You're right that intent matters a lot. I had a friend in high school who posted something pretty racist as a joke and now he works for a nonprofit helping immigrant families. He never even apologized for the tweet, but the way he lives his life now shows he changed. Actions speak louder than old posts.