The war of phone wielder against chef rages on: despite today’s pro-phone victory in Washington, Texan comrades have been hit with a setback. Allison Matsu was having a drink. She didn’t like her bartender. She tweeted about it. BOOM: booted.
HoustonPress reports Matsu’s infringing tweet called her bartender a “twerp”, and labelled him with a #jackoff hashtag. I wasn’t aware twerp was insulting to anyone outside of Bugs Bunny cartoons, but I can see taking offence to the whole jackoff thing. Especially in hashtag form! That multiplies any burn. The establishment’s Twitter operator spotted Matsu’s peeved message, and within minutes was on the horn with the bar–and out she went.
How’d she take it? Not well:
Left @DownHouseHTX in tears after GM called up & asked the bartender to hand me the phone. He proceeded to curse a me & ask me to leave. Wow
Some interesting questions raised here. Calling your bartender a jackoff to his face would result in an understandable Get the hell out. But what if you mentioned it quietly to someone next to you? That happens all the time–and as a private conversation, it’s none of the bartender’s business.
But Twitter — Twitter is different. It straddles a bizarre line between private and public. Presumably, Matsu wanted to share with her friends that she was being served by a jackoff. But she knew it’d be accessible by anyone — including the restaurant’s owner. Can you equate online rudeness with being an IRL asshole? I hope not, because I say terrible, terrible things online. Terrible things that would likely leave me banished from every watering hole short of an actual watering hole. And even then, I’m sure those places monitor their Twitter feeds by now. [HoustonPress via Village Voice]
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