Internet demands UK fire someone who hasn’t worked there in two years for ugly tweet | Opinion
Sometimes we all need to step away from our keyboards and phones.
But Lexington resident Betsy Packard — and by extension the University of Kentucky — found out just how insane our internet culture can be on Monday morning.
On Sunday, Packard wrote on X “Hurricane Helene: What if GOD is punishing MAGA populations for their hate and hypocrisy? Works for me!”
The Libs of TikTok, a right-wing troll account, quickly picked it up, noting that Packard was a University of Kentucky staffer, a graduate TA in creative writing. They sent the tweet into the stratosphere, demanding to know what UK was going to do about it. “Does @UKarts_sciences condone these messages?” the account asked angrily.
The only problem with this brilliant academic trolling is Packard doesn’t work for UK. She was a graduate student between 2020 and 2022, according to spokesman Jay Blanton.
But before that fact could be made clear, the Daily Mail jumped in with this headline: “University of Kentucky staffer says deadly Hurricane Helene was ‘God’s way of punishing MAGA’”
After Blanton sent several emails to the Daily Mail, they changed it to “ex-staffer.” But in the meantime, UK has been painted with a very broad and damaging brush.
Packard made an abhorrent and inexcusable statement; she is clearly suffering from some form of Trump Derangement Syndrome to blame the horrors that North Carolinians are undergoing on their politics. Libs of TikTok was so anxious to make an example of her that they made an even dumber misstep. This is their brand: Identify left-wingers who say or do something dumb, and then call on the entirety of the internet to pounce, facts be damned.
And here we all are, madder and dumber than we needed to be on a Monday morning. And not even close to helping the people of Western North Carolina who are suffering through unimaginable suffering.
As Blanton said: “Such statements are abhorrent and do not reflect our values as an institution,” he said. “Our thoughts and concerns are with those impacted by these devastating storms. As an institution, we have many members of our community directly impacted by them and working with them to provide support and resources at this time.”
Meanwhile, here’s a handy list of actual ways to help our friends in North Carolina.
Send money, then go outside and touch some grass.
This story was originally published September 30, 2024 at 11:51 AM.
