Justine Sacco
Becoming a Celebrity, a Cruel and Unusual Punishment
Often times in today's society we hear the word celebrity and immediately associate it with a positive connotation. However there are some exceptions. Justine Sacco was no where near a celebrity before she made the decision to write this tweet that would drastically affect her life.
Now yes, while it was a bad tweet the meaning behind it, according to Sacco, became completely distorted and inaccurate with every new impression it made. She claims to have been, "making fun of the bubble" that American's tend to live in when it comes to third world countries but when the retweets and favorites began to skyrocket, Twitter ate her alive. She was an unwilling celebrity and for a long time unaware of her new found infamy. People became seemingly obsessed with Sacco, or more so obsessed with ruining her. They were working incredibly hard to try and get her fired. They were relentless and judgmental in every way. Like a lot of celebrities, people wanted to know exactly what she was doing, they even began tracking her flight. Many Twitter users began to devalue her life, saying they, "kinda hope she does get aids? lol." When celebrities have 'undesireable traits' the fan base they once knew will do a complete 180 on them and tear them apart, this is what was happening to Sacco as she made her was through the sky. Not that she had a fan base to begin with but as an 'unwilling celebrity' she was made famous so she could be torn down. People went so far as to wait at the airport she was to arrive in and snap pictures of her getting off the plane.
It's easy to wish to be a celebrity when you see the fame, fortune, and lifestyle that they have but there's a lot more to being a celebrity than just glitz and glam. There's definitely different ways to become one as well, positive and negative... so just be careful what you wish for.
I like how you added her real meaning behind the tweet because no one viewed it that way and even though she should've used common sense before tweeting it, it's nice to know that she didn't mean what she said in that way. I understand why people would want to bash her and tear her down because what she said was awful but it's really easy for people to band together to love, or in this case, hate something especially when they can relate to it.
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