The Houston Rockets fired social media manager Chad Shanks for a trash-talking joke he tweeted as the team secured a playoff victory Tuesday night over the Dallas Mavericks.
The tweet in question was deleted from Twitter, but plenty of folks took screenshots, and re-posted them to the social network.
The tweet featured an emoji horse icon (representing the Mavericks' mascot) with a gun to its head. The tweet was sent out after it became clear the Rockets had secured a victory, and implied that the Mavs would soon be put out of their misery.
While the tweet delighted many, it also offended some — including the Mavericks — and Shanks was soon let go, and the Rockets issued an apology.
In a follow up
interview with SportingNews.com, Shanks took responsibility for the tweet, saying he may have pushed the envelope a little too far.
"I didn’t think people would equate pretend violence on an emoji horse with actual violence on a real horse," he explained. "That’s not what I intended, but my job was to anticipate how these things would go over, and I failed."
"The good thing about social media is you get instant responses to your work. The bad thing about social media is you get instant responses to your work," he added.
BuzzFeed reported that many fans have come to Shanks' defense in the following days, starting the hashtag campaign #BringBackChad and even circulating a petition to rehire him on Change.org.
"You all have no idea how much all this support means,"
Shanks tweeted to his supporters from his personal account on Wednesday. "Doesn't excuse my not thinking before tweeting, but it has been much appreciated."
"I may have been the first person in history to be fired due to an emoji combination. That's something, I guess," he concluded.
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