Hard lessons learned from the biggest celebrity social media blunders

Social media blunders in the public eye

There are some celebrities that move from famous to infamous once they get a hold of a Twitter or Facebook account. Just take a look at Amanda Bynes, the former Disney sweetheart who let her meltdown go public in a series of frantic Tweets over several months. She picked fights, listed what she deemed the ugliest celebrities and basically flushed her career down the toilet. However, she’s not alone.

It seems several celebrities don’t really get that one it’s online, it’s there to stay. Remember when Arnold Shwarzenegger posted a Twitter video that he said was a thank you for his constituents but featured him holding a massive knife? He said it was to symbolize cutting state costs, but it came across as aggressively creepy instead. Here are a few more blunders from the past and the lessons to be learned from them.

Hard lessons

How about the time Bow Wow tweeted about being drunk while he was still driving his Lamborghini? He also called out Chris Brown at the same time, who was allegedly with him and a social media blunderer in his own right. The lesson here is to basically not incriminate yourself, and keep drunk tweeting and texting to a minimum no matter who you are.

Then there was the Rihanna social media storm earlier this year when she allegedly singled out a high schooler who used Rihanna’s style as inspiration for prom. While it was first reported that Rihanna made fun of the girl, Rihanna then backtracked and said it wasn’t her who made the comments. Either way, distancing your fans (or family, friends or colleagues) by embarrassing them on social media is bad PR.

Common sense isn’t so common

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has been in several social media scandals, but one got him slapped with a $25,000 fine from the NBA. When he tweeted that the NBA makes money from Twitter after commenting on a tech from JR Smith, it turns out that still wasn’t enough to teach Cuban a lesson. He got another fine a year later when asking NBA fans for “help.” The lesson here is that once you’ve been disciplined once, whether via Twitter or SEO rankings, maybe it’s time to clean up your game.

Al Roker got into trouble when he snapped photos of possible jurors and then posted them to Twitter, which is an obvious violation of court law. Even though he apologized and said he wasn’t sharing news, but just his jury duty experience, the court didn’t take very kindly to those excuses.

Celeb status

An avid social media user, when Paris Hilton was arrested for cocaine, in 2010, she tried to say the purse wasn’t hers but it was too late. She tweeter earlier that morning how much she loved her new Chanel purse, which helped police seal the deal for her arrest.

Finally, some celebs become celebrities due to social media, such as potential Congressman Anthony Weiner. When he was caught tweeting dirty pictures, he was forced to resign.

So remember, if you use social media, learn from the mistakes of these celebs and tread carefully because you never know who might be taking a screenshot.