In an idiotic act of PCism run amuck, The Houston Rockets NBA team has fired its social media director because he dared to posted two emoticons (or emojis) of a horse being shot by a gun after the Mavericks lost to the Rockets on Wednesday. The media guy’s bosses said that the gun emoji “wasn’t appropriate” and so fired him over it.
This is the idiocy we’ve arrived at, folks. It seems that all it takes for your career to be over these days is one non-PC action and bingo, bango, it’s the end. And why is a picture of a carttongun a fireable offense, anyway?
After the Houston Rockets beat the Mavericks, the Texans’ social media manager Chad Shanks jumped on Twitter to celebrate the team’s win–as is… or was… his job.
Shanks’ Tweet featured a cartoon gun emoji aimed at a horse invoking the old “dead horse” joke to suggest that the Mavericks were destined to lose.
But almost immediately his team bosses took issue with the Tweet and abruptly fired him.
Shanks sadly announced his fate on his own Twitter account saying, “Sometimes you can go too far. I will no longer run @HoustonRockets but am grateful to the organization that let me develop an online voice.”
First of all… get a damn sense of humor, Houston Rockets! Secondly, since when is a cartoon gun a bad thing in America?
The improperly fired employee had a good point on his own personal Twitter feed saying he’s set a new standard in the work place.
I may have been the first person in history to be fired due to an emoji combination. That's something, I guess.
— Chad Shanks (@chadjshanks) April 30, 2015
This is simply PCism gone wild. Shanks did not deserve to be so abruptly fired for this, especially in light of the fact that he had been previously deemed an excellent employee.