Remember when Maurice Jones-Drew (@Jones_Drew32) criticized Jay Cutler via Twitter after Cutler decided to sit out of the second half of the NFC Championship game? Me either. That is until someone felt compelled to ask him about it recently. What did we do before Twitter?
Back in January, Maurice Jones-Drew (now) famously tweeted, “the Urban Meyer rule is in effect right now…..When the going gets tough…..QUIT.” His tweet was in response to Jay Cutler deciding to sit out the of the 2nd half of the NFC Championship game due to a sprained MCL. Jones-Drew wasn’t the only critic but he has incurred the most criticism following his comments and it’s the only one we’re still talking about.
Weeks after the criticism, Jones – Drew clarified his comments but he never apologized for making them. Jones – Drew has no intention of apologizing today either and and feels that there was nothing wrong with sharing his opinion. Hmmm…..that seems to be a novel concept nowadays. Jones – Drew went on to say:
I wouldn’t apologize because I didn’t do anything wrong, I don’t think. I didn’t commit a crime , I didn’t kill anyone or rape anyone or anything like that. I mean, I stated my opinion, and it seems like you get more backlash for that than committing a real crime in some sense. I feel like I didn’t do anything wrong. I just said what everybody else was thinking.”
Maybe not the best worded explanation but I get Jones-Drew’s point. I wax poetic on this topic frequently and I’ll do it again. Social networking is amazing. I love it. I tweet all day. Literally. It’s afforded me and others the opportunity to “talk” to people that I may never come across in life. (Hi Chris!!!) It allows the masses access to celebrities. Most importantly it’s fun. Unfortunately, it’s also afforded fans the opportunity to argue, yell, curse and disrespect people that don’t have to interact with them on a daily basis. I’d bet your next check that 99% of those same fans wouldn’t say any of the things that they are so willing to tweet.
When a celebrity tweets or facebooks an opinion, is that an automatic invitation to be a jerk to them? Are they not entitled to have and express an opinion? And then you tweet them something like, “Hey, CELEB, you’re an *ss and I hate you,” or “Hey, CELEB, who made you a f*cking expert. Stick to playing football dummy”. Oook. What if said celebrity responded in kind. “Whatever loser. Make sure that my French fries are fresh the next time I come through your drive through” or “Does your boss know that you’re tweeting at work? You haven’t clocked out yet so get to work.” Not so much fun, is it? So here’s a suggestion. If you wouldn’t say it when you bump into the athlete in Chick-Fil-A, don’t tweet it. Back to the lesson at hand……
While you may not agree with Maurice’s opinion, he’s entitled to have one and quite frankly, he shouldn’t have to apologize for it. It’s the beauty of being human in the 21st century. Life goes on. I promise you. It really does. Carry on.