Several weeks ago, I saw a story that caught my eye. A younger man held up a sign during a football pregame show that he needed beer money (specifically Busch Light, which is probably why I read it. Sweet, delicious Busch Light…mmmm) and put his Venmo on the sign. For those over 50, Venmo is a way to send direct payments to individuals, like Pay Pal. I’m 40, so I’m not judging, just offering to help.
This guy, Carson King is mid 20’s, so it started as a joke, then went viral and ta-da, he wound up with a million bucks. Seriously. He decided to donate the entire thing to the Children’s Hospital in Iowa that is famous for the Iowa football team waving to them during the game, as it overlooks the stadium. Anheuser-Busch even stepped in a donated, plus offered him a year’s worth of Busch Light (either $140 or if Carson drank like I did in college, $23,134). What a great story, right?
WELL THEN THE MEDIA TOOK OVER. A newspaper report named Aaron Calvin decided, for some reason, to dig back seven years into Carson’s Twitter and found two racist tweets that allegedly were retweets/posts from Tosh.0. (Daniel Tosh is a comic known for his edgy material.) Busch beer pulled the endorsement and Carson King was shamed. The paper, the Des Moines register, then came under fire for what many viewed as an unnecessary shaming. The dude could’ve kept the million, but a reporter dug and exposed two tweets from when the guy was 16. It poisoned the whole story. Carson did jump out in front when he realized they were going to include them in the story, but it was damage done.
WELL THEN PEOPLE PUSHED BACK and found out the reporter had a MULTITUDE of trash posts on his feed. Aaron had made posts about the n word, homosexuals including the f word and even threw in a “Fuck the NYPD” for good measure because they arrested a rapper he was fond of. World shattering, no, but a perfect example of hypocrisy and Mr. Calvin didn’t donate a million to a kids’ hospital. He was then fired and claimed to be a victim of “right wing ideology” like women and persons of color. He is officially more hateable now for saying that than he was for exposing Carson in the first place, although in fairness, the paper thought it important to include that in the final story, or Aaron wouldn’t have also been investigated.
The moral of the story? Internet works both ways, dummy. Sadly, some people don’t get this. The New York Times has had several reporters get noticed for anti Jewish posts in the past month and you would think the world’s most recognizable paper would be a little diligent with its own, since, you know, they are in the business of reporting. But hey, I’m not a reporter so I go to research things I just violently crap myself and pass out. Oh and as for Carson’s donation? It’s now over three million bucks according to two sources I just looked up. ON THE INTERNETS.