Where Has All the Common Sense Gone?

It was one of those days today.  One of those days where it felt like the world, the internet, and everyone around you lost their mind.  I don't think it was a full moon or anything, but something came undone and collectively everything and everyone just seemed to not make any sense.

Let's start with the obvious -- the horrible event in Aurora, Colorado where 14 people lost their lives and 59 people were injured while at a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises.  They were going to do the most simplest of things - to just be entertained by a comic book movie - when someone who identified with a character a bit too much thought he was the Joker and unleashed countless rounds into the crowd.  A truly awful and senseless act of terrorism.  It's enough to unhinge anyone, because it threatens our sense of safety in our own society.  We created this and we're forced to shine the light on ourselves and figure out what went wrong.

During instances of national calamity I'm glued to the news online and need up to the minute information.  I scour the internet looking for different stories, reading reactions, and listening to the various types of conversations about the event.  It's like a train wreck -- I can do nothing else but watch, and today was no different.  Unfortunately, I came across at least two extremely insensitive social media posts:

1) The NRA at 9:20am EST:
@NRA_Rifleman: Good morning, shooters. Happy Friday! Weekend plans?
2) A British Clothing Company around 1pm EST:
@celebboutique: #Aurora is trending, clearly about our Kim K inspired #Aurora dress ;)  bit.ly/MOY57N
Both of these are "honest" mistakes. The first was a scheduled tweet that on any other day would have been fine. The second was a British company that may or may not have heard about a tragedy way across the pond. But just because they were "honest" doesn't mean they weren't incredibly stupid and couldn't have been avoided by using common sense.

The NRA: If I were on the NRA's social media team I would never, ever, in a million years, schedule a post on any social media platform. Ever. Full Stop. The world is too unpredictable a place, and the risk is too high that something like this, unfortunately, could happen and you'll get caught with your pants down.  For the 30 seconds of time it saves you, it's not worth having the negative light shown on you. Regardless of being pro or anti-gun, you at least want to always appear tactful. The worst part about this, is that the post went live at 9:20am EST.  Easily 6-8 hours after the event, and they didn't take it down until 12pm.  That's a terrible reaction time.

If you want to schedule tweets and reduce the risk, don't use an automation tool that comes in most third party clients. Always err on the side of caution and common sense.
Pro Tip:  Keep a doc handy of all the content you would normally schedule to post, up to 2-3 days out.  Then set a calendar reminder to post it when you want to post it.  Bonus: You're actually there to respond to any engagement you receive, which is the point of social in the first place. 
The International Company: To me, this is the worst case of lack of common sense.  If you're a community or social media manager that's worth a damn, the first question that should come into your mind is, "WHY is this trending?" and to find that out you click on the hashtag to spend 30 seconds looking at the tweets.  It would take no less than 1-2 tweets talking about a mass murder to know that the hashtag is NOT about your Kim Kardashian style dress.

Their saving grace is that they at least admitted it and apologized, but you can't make up for the lack of common sense and their laziness.  
Pro Tip:  Don't be lazy.  Things trend for a reason and they're not always positive.  Don't cut corners and make sure to ALWAYS read into things.  (And if you can, avoid tweeting about Kim Kardashian anyway, even on a normal day she's polarizing and cheap)
Remember: People on the internet are unforgiving. 
Turning away from the lack of social media common sense, I turn to two instances in the past couple weeks of the worst judgement I've seen in quite a while when it comes to writing in public places.
  1.  Why Every Social Media Manager Should be Under 25  (Next Gen Journal)
  2. A Struggle of Not Struggling (Huffington Post College)
Assuming that you've read both articles, you'll see a giant commonality amongst them both - the comments on each are in the high hundreds and all agree on one thing:  both writers' have no idea what they're talking about because they have no concept of the world that they live in and don't support their articles with any kind of solution, balanced argument, or facts.  One girl (A Struggle...) uses the television shows "Girls" and "Sex and the City" as the "only" examples of women to idolize, and the other girl alienates every, single, person, over the age of 25 (and some under 25) using social media tools in their work and uses no examples or sound reasoning to back up her "claims." Both articles do nothing but whine.

I am sure that both girls in person are wonderfully bright, over-achieving young 20 somethings that before these articles were on an upward trajectory in their careers.  However, their insight (or lack there of) and sense of entitlement is so astounding they might not ever recover.  Buried very deep in their articles is an interesting premise, but they fail miserably at being able to bring it to light. Instead, they surround it with shoddy writing, flimsy stories, and sweeping generalizations. They are the epitome of "that" millennial you want nothing to do with, and that's really unfortunate for those extremely hard working 20 somethings out there. You can't correct this kind of thinking with any amount of education or mentorship.  The one thing they did do was drive traffic to a website, and for that they may be patted on the head, but I can tell you I'd never work with them. 

Now this isn't to say that everything I've ever written on the internet is worthy of a gold star, but I never sought out to place opinion pieces severely judging others while patting myself on the back on national news sites.  Common sense would say to stay away from that kind of thing as again, people on the internet are unforgiving.   

Whether you're in charge of social media posts or are blogging on your own - exercise your best judgement and common sense.  And if you are even remotely unsure, ask someone else. 

Really though... where has common sense gone? And how do we get it back?