Lost a freelance gig over a joke I made on Twitter 8 years ago

I do graphic design work on the side, mostly logos and social media graphics for small businesses. Last month I landed a contract with a local coffee shop chain in Columbus to redesign their menu boards. Halfway through the project, the owner called me up and said they were going in a different direction. I prodded a bit and he admitted someone on their social media team dug up a tweet from 2016 where I made a dumb joke about pumpkin spice lovers. It was a harmless jab, nothing aggressive, just a silly stereotype thing. They said they couldn't associate with someone who 'promotes negativity.' I lost about $1200 in work over a joke I forgot I even posted. Has anyone else had an old post come back to bite them like this?

3 comments

3 Comments

patricia2621mo ago

Ugh cleanup your online presence regularly. I scrub mine every year.

mark_ward1mo ago

Yeah I hear you. I just set up alerts for my name and that catches most of the junk before it gets out of hand. Did you find any tool that made the yearly scrub easier?

rowan_wells301mo ago

Scrubbing feels like a losing battle when companies like Facebook keep updating their data sharing policies every other week lol. Better to just assume everything's out there and lock down what you can from the start.