It’s safe to say that since The Mandalorian busted on the scene in late 2019, most of us have been a little obsessed with it. Over the past year and change The Child has been a cultural nexus. Appearing in memes, music, gifs, toys, and clothing items, he has been a much-needed distraction and source of joy during this pandemic. Unfortunately, Grogu has recently lost one of his protectors.
ICYMI, last week Disney announced that the actor who played Cara Dune on The Mandalorian, Gina Carano, was released from her contract and would no longer be a part of The Mandalorian moving forward. However, for anybody paying attention, the move came as no surprise.
Carano has spent much of 2020 using her social media accounts to spread misinformation about voter fraud, she has made fun of mask mandates, encouraged businesses and churches to open during a pandemic in violation of safety guidelines, and has “joked” about pronoun usage, making fun at transgender people. The straw that seemingly broke the camels back was when Carano created a now-deleted post on her Instagram, comparing how Jewish people were killed in Nazi Germany to how republicans are treated in America today.
While her views are offensive, harmful, and illogical, the fact that she was fired because of her social media usage is interesting and worth discussing as a large number of the senior class is preparing to join the workforce most of whom are active social media users.
Here’s a Spring Break to-do list for your social media presence:
- Review your online presence. Start by Googling your name, including nicknames and permutations with any middle names and/or initials. You might also want to include your home city or schools you attended. See if you can find your social media accounts: what are the top posts that show up? Look them over as if you were a prospective employer. Are you confident in what they will see?
- Do some spring cleaning. Sure, it’s 19°F and snowing… but it’s the thought that counts. Go through your social media and Marie Kondo everything that might give an employer a reason to pass over your application. Consider deleting or making private anything that includes heavy profanity, provocative content, or anything illegal. Consider the organizations to which you are applying and their brands and reputations. Engaging in social activities during the pandemic (particularly unmasked indoors), discriminatory comments (racist, sexist, homophobic, etc), excessive political views, spreading misinformation could be a turnoff. Even drinking alcohol and/or using marijuana (where it is legal) could be a potential hindrance. Decide what you’re comfortable sharing and delete anything that doesn’t fit the image you want as your first impression.
- Keep an eye on your friends and tags. Just because you’ve gone through the steps of cleaning up your profile doesn’t mean that your friends have. You might get tagged in a post or photo that you might not want a prospective employer to see. If you find a post like this, try talking to your friends to either untag you or make it private. Create a free Google alert that will send you an email anytime when your name (or someone with a similar name) has something new posted on the web to help you stay vigilant.
- Check your privacy settings. Even if you’ve done this in the past, it’s always a good idea to re-check them occasionally as platforms get updated, settings change and it’s easy for things to slip through the cracks. You can likely limit what people can share about you, tag you in, or limit what kind of posts people who aren’t your followers or friends can see.
- When in, doubt, just don’t. There is an old adage that goes, “Discretion is the better part of valor”. When it comes to managing your social media during a job search, if you ever have to wonder if what you are about to post might get you in trouble, just don’t post it. Sometimes it’s just better to be safe than sorry.