Tweet with Horrible Math Skills Meant Sarcastically
- Tweet meant sarcastically taken literally
- Sarcastic jokes in print rarely do well, this one about spreading out Musk’s fortunes ignores the tone of the author
- Sharing the message allows others to look down on the math skills of others, but was always meant in jest
OUR RATING: Major Negligence by those sharing this unironically. MSNBC-level basic journalistic negligence
Elon Musk recently decided to buy Twitter [1], although the deal is apparently on hold. [2]
Major Violations:
- Missing Context
- Misrepresentation
Here’s the tweet:
Elon Musk has almost 300 billion net worth. He could give every American $1 billion dollars but instead he wants to buy Twitter.
— Chef Andrew Gruel (@ChefGruel) April 15, 2022
Nobody read the first comment from author bluecheck Andrew Gruel:
The amount of people who think I’m being serious worries me.
— Chef Andrew Gruel (@ChefGruel) April 15, 2022
And instead, perhaps well intentioned people commented on the literal meaning of the original tweet, unaware that it was meant in jest.
Here’s one person who shared the tweet unironically, where we redacted the name and profile pic out of respect to the poster:
Gruel is a television personality and he definitely earned some free attention with the tweet, but the misinterpretation speaks to the inability for most people to read tone and inflection, critical to sarcasm, in print.
It’s also unwise to assume major media personalities are so math-deficient that they can’t capture that $300 billion spread out over 350 million Americans doesn’t equal $1 billion per person.
OUR RATING: Major Negligence by those sharing this unironically. MSNBC-level basic journalistic negligence
Bibliography:
1 ] https://www.npr.org/2022/04/25/1094671225/elon-musk-bought-twitter-plans
2 ] https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-technology-social-media-64b8534f53aa0213fbfd2245bacd6109
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