Source: Paras Griffin / Getty
The internet rarely if ever has any chill. That’s especially true in cases where there’s an opportunity to attack someone being accused of attacking someone else, all in the apparent name of social media justice.
It’s in that context that what seems like a growing number of social media posts have galvanized around one single social media post drawing attention to reality TV star Porsha Williams’ inability to pronounce a particular word. It was an act of social media karma, apparently, as part of the ongoing shame being heaped upon Williams’ comments this week criticizing talk show host Tamron Hall’s style of interviewing.
The social media post going viral is a tweet from Thursday that showcased video footage of Williams co-hosting on The Breakfast Club radio show during which she had, um, problems pronouncing the word, “reciprocity.”
Williams wasn’t alone in her pronunciation struggles, as co-hosts Charlamagne tha God and DJ Envy offered their help to no avail.
Watch the video below.
To Williams’ credit, she knew the definition of the word. She simply just could not bring herself to pronounce it correctly.
But on Al Gore’s internet and specifically on Elon Musk’s Twitter, the red meat had been thrown right into the mouths of the social media wolves, who ate up the video and spit it back out in the form of a good old fashioned social media dragging.
While a good number of the quote-tweets posted in response came to Williams’ defense by noting none of the men in the room knew how to say the word, either, others pointed out that she has a long history of such flubs.
“This is the same person that thought the Underground Railroad was a actual train,” one tweet accurately noted in a nod to the infamous Real Housewives of Atlanta (RHOA) episode in which Williams admitted her confusion about how runaway slaves escaped bondage and terror.
Others suggested Williams’ inability to pronounce “reciprocity” was right on-brand for her and linked it to the RHOA episode in which she didn’t know how many days are in a typical calendar year.
“She had 265 whole days to learn these words,” one tweet mocked.
Other tweets wondered why Williams didn’t just try to pronounce the word phonetically, syllable-by-syllable while another just said what most of us were probably already thinking: “Embarrassing af.”
Williams’ social media dragging came days after she questioned the journalistic integrity of Hall and her eponymous talk show for an interview with former Breakfast Club host Angela Yee, whose comments about being “the lone woman” working on the popular morning radio show sparked controversy.
On Monday, as Charlamagne and Envy discussed Yee’s comments, Williams suggested that Hall didn’t ask the right follow-up questions to allow an opportunity for context.
“Instead of talking to Tamron, she would have been able to expound on that,” Williams, who is also an author, said. “But when you have someone like a Tamron talking to you and she’s giving you accolades and she’s raising you up to do nothing but set you up to say something that’s gonna be catchy and she can look like a journalist, then that’s where you find Angela in this place trending for the wrong thing.”
Williams called The Tamron Hall Show a “hidden mess” and used her own experience as a guest on the show to justify her criticism. Said she was “so excited” when she went on the show to promote her book but “did not necessarily feel supported on her show.”
“It turned from just her asking questions about the book to her kinda almost attacking me, almost attacking me like I had to justify anything that I had going on,” Williams said. “It just didn’t feel good.”
For perspective’s sake, here’s a brief clip from Hall interviewing Williams.
Supporters quickly defended Hall by reminding Williams that the award-winning veteran journalist has decades of experience on the job.
Days later, Williams is still being dragged across the hot coals of social media for criticizing Hall.
SEE ALSO:
Note To Celebrities: Journalists Like Tamron Hall Will Hold ‘Messy’ Interviewees Accountable
Porsha Williams Questions Tamron Hall’s Journalistic Integrity After Angela Yee Interview
