{"id":446,"date":"2021-04-05T14:24:55","date_gmt":"2021-04-05T14:24:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/sarahlethbridgelean\/?p=446"},"modified":"2024-09-08T18:26:14","modified_gmt":"2024-09-08T18:26:14","slug":"a-tweets-tale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/sarahlethbridgelean\/a-tweets-tale\/","title":{"rendered":"A Tweet’s Tale"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Last month, I finally \u2018went viral\u2019. As a fan of social media (Facebook to keep in touch with family and friends, Instagram to keep in touch with celebs, Twitter to keep in touch with global events) I had always sneakily wanted to go viral. I\u2019m not sure why, it probably stemmed from my days of hanging out on messageboards of bands I loved where you could become a bit of a board celebrity by posting amusing bants regularly and gaining some messageboard mates who shared similar interests and the same sense of humour.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The days of hanging out on music messageboards are long gone of course – work is far too busy, family life far too demanding, but I do dip into Twitter every now and then and hope to tweet something that resonates with people. \u00a0I have longed for some of my ideas about lean and improvement to resonate, but in the end, it was Meghan Markle and Piers Morgan that delivered the fleeting fame that I had craved.\u00a0 \u00a0I think my most successful tweet prior to my \u2018tweet that went viral\u2019 wasn\u2019t even about lean, it was wishing my friend Happy Birthday! at a Learning and Teaching Conference, cognoscente of how liked I know she is by everyone and having cunningly used the conference hashtag to garner more attention.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Many of my tweets are more feminist than lean I suppose – I share my incredulity at the latest light sentence given to a perpetrator of male violence, or an overly hefty sentence for a female shoplifter.\u00a0 \u00a0I always like to point out when there is an all male panel at a conference (usually a conference relating to innovation I find \u2013 oh how I wish that women were more innovative *raised eyebrow of cynicism*). On March 3rd<\/sup> I was getting ready for yet another taxing day of w.f.h., Good Morning Britain was on in the background for Piers Morgan larks (I know\u2026 I shouldn\u2019t add to the ratings) and I heard man after man talk, with zero evidence, about whether Meghan Markle was a bully or not.\u00a0 I have no insight into the Royal Family whatsoever but I do know that Meghan challenged Proctor and Gamble\u2019s sexist washing up liquid advert successfully<\/a> and that makes her a feminist hero in my book.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The rage rose and so I did what any good feminist would do, took a photo of the television and took to Twitter. \u00a0Having learned the power of a strategic hashtag, I knew that #GMB would attract an audience way beyond my (almost) 800 followers. It is definitely a more powerful hashtag than #lean\u00a0(alas). I paused as I wrote the tweet however, because I know what a dark place the internet can be, particularly for women. My friend is a music journalist and she has been very open with me about the threats and abuse she has received just because she gave a band a bad review.\u00a0 Indeed, nearly three-quarters (73 per cent) of female respondents to a survey of journalists<\/a> said they had experienced online abuse, harassment, threats and attacks. So I wanted this tweet to be seen, but I didn\u2019t want anybody to personally have a go at me about it. #brave. \u00a0I therefore chose a statement which was factually correct to be followed with a fairly nondescript \u201cso tired of it all\u201d – a statement which inferred my feelings but did not directly pass judgement.\u00a0 #clever.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"\"<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Very quickly, the pings began.\u00a0 I then instantly began to feel afraid. I reviewed what I had written, \u201cFive men debate whether Meghan is a bully. So tired of it all.\u201d Nope.. not much there that could stir up a death threat Sarah. Stay calm, stay calm.\u00a0 Anything that could get me fired? No \u2026 don\u2019t think so \u2026 Should I delete it? No don\u2019t. You didn\u2019t say anything bad and it\u2019s important to point out these things\u2026 stay calm, stay calm. Ok, so what are people saying\u2026 \u00a0early replies were, rightly, keen to correct my statement, which should have read \u201cFive white<\/em><\/strong> men debate whether Meghan is a bully\u201d and, to my shame, I had of course noted that this was the case, but I deliberately omitted mentioning race in my tweet because I knew that mentioning it would mean that it would likely attract more abuse. \u00a0My aim was \u2018point out the injustice but please don\u2019t say anything mean to me\u2019 which was cowardly because I have every confidence that Meghan attracts more than her fair share of vitriol because<\/em><\/strong> she is a woman of colour.\u00a0 Outspoken female system disruptors are never appreciated that warmly, let alone when race is added into the mix.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I quickly muted tweet notifications for the tweet because it was giving me heart palpitations plus I had things to do. \u00a0I suppose what was pleasing about the incident was that so many people agreed with me, but yes, there were tweets that were angling to have a go at me, trouble for them was, I hadn\u2019t given them much to go on. So in the ‘people who have seen my tweet: death threat’ ratio I\u2019m currently standing at 1,080,629: 0.\u00a0 My \u201cSarah Lethbridge\u201d google alert (which has NEVER previously gone off) told me that my tweet was even mentioned in Newsweek (the online edition) which pleasingly impressed my Dad. I imagine that it also played a critical role in Piers\u2019 decision to leave GMB as well. #ijest.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I felt cross with myself for wimping out of \u2018five white <\/em><\/strong>men\u2019 however and have resolved to confront such matters head on in future and to not be afraid.\u00a0 I\u2019m trying to be a peaceful activist for change and feel proud to have the support of the Business School and University behind me. We\u2019re trying to address organisational inequality by scoping out an Inclusive Leadership programme as part of our Executive Education portfolio and our most recent Breakfast Briefing focused on gender equality<\/a> for International Women\u2019s Day. Chwarae Teg, an organisation which seeks to \u2018inspire, lead and deliver gender equality in Wales\u2019 and Llamau, a charity that strives to ensure that \u2018no young person or vulnerable woman should ever have to experience homelessness\u2019 shared some of the horrifying realities that women face and discussed just how much there is still to do, particularly as the pandemic has exacerbated inequality horrendously.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

So that was my viral tweet moment in the sun and on reflection, it was all a bit too scary. It is just astonishing how quickly something can ricochet around the world – and this was just a very mild case of the virals! I’ll try to focus my energies on activities that can tangibly make a difference from now on (whilst at the same time noting some powerful lessons on how to post successful tweets).<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last month, I finally \u2018went viral\u2019. As a fan of social media (Facebook to keep in touch with family and friends, Instagram to keep in touch with celebs, Twitter to […]","protected":false},"author":151,"featured_media":1032,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"custom_author":[44],"class_list":["post-446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-media","custom_author-sarah-lethbridge"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/sarahlethbridgelean\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/554\/2021\/04\/Phone-pic.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/sarahlethbridgelean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/sarahlethbridgelean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/sarahlethbridgelean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/sarahlethbridgelean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/151"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/sarahlethbridgelean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/sarahlethbridgelean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1031,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/sarahlethbridgelean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446\/revisions\/1031"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/sarahlethbridgelean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/sarahlethbridgelean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/sarahlethbridgelean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/sarahlethbridgelean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446"},{"taxonomy":"custom_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/sarahlethbridgelean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom_author?post=446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}