JetBlue Tweet-spanks comedian Andy Borowitz for making bad jokes about their cranky flight attendant. Yes, because tweets are the real cause of violence among airline passengers.
Like most everyone else, I’ve been rather amused by the saga of Steven Slater, the (soon to be former) JetBlue flight attendant who bid his career adieu after cursing out a passenger, grabbing a beer, and escaping his plane’s emergency slide. When he was released on bail, he said that it seemed something in what he did resonated with people, and I think he’s right. Most of have had our “you can take this job and shove it” moments, but rarely do they come to fruition in such glorious self-immolation. While the drones at Homeland Security and JetBlue may be claiming that he endangered passenger safety, it seems most of us admire Slater for his savoir faire and the finality with which he jettisoned his 20-year career. How many of us wouldn’t love to go out in a similar grand and theatrical fashion??
There have been some amusing side effects to Slater’s career suicide, perhaps none more entertaining that Andy Borowitz’ Twitter war with JetBlue . Slater’s 15 minutes may be coming to a close, but it’s nice to know that so many can find so much amusement in something that we’ve likely all wanted to do at one time or another. This being America, of course, the only shock inherent in Slater’s career suicide is that it took Madison Avenue so long to exploit it for commercial gain.