Said a Facebook post by a woman named Katharine Lemansky, a.k.a. Katie Brown, who attached a photo of a beautiful chocolate Labrador, its muzzle taped shut with double-wrapped silver duct tape. Later claiming that the tape had only been affixed for “a minute,” Brown had nonetheless unwittingly ignited a Facebook fire which resulted in the city of South Daytona, Florida’s email server crashing (they received hundreds of thousands of emails demanding the woman be found and the dog be rescued) and the need for additional 911 call-fielders being employed at the center.
Guess what, Katie Brown? This is what happens when you don’t shut up. It’s what happens when you insist on incessantly posting things on your Facebook page that either have absolutely nothing to do with anything anyone cares about, or they have everything to do with something everyone cares about. Had you not felt the need to brag to the world that, indeed, you are more powerful than your small pet and were born with hands facile at crafting duct-tape face masks, then perhaps you wouldn’t have been charged with animal cruelty and be facing up to 150 days in jail. As it happens, it’s a small price to pay. Katie, we’re amazed you get to keep your two dogs and that investigators found them to be “very well cared for.” We hope that this is true and that you don’t get any more bright ideas on how to quiet their barking. Keep sharing with the world your inane and terrible ideas, and you will lose those pets for certain, and possibly more. It’s what happens when you don’t shut up.
And you’re famous, too, Katie Brown! But did you really want your fifteen minutes to be for infuriating animal lovers around the world? Between you and that crazy dentist that shot the lion and couldn’t post the picture on Twitter fast enough, those who mistreat animals must, we can only imagine, want to feel justified and supported in their actions to so boldly alert the social media world to them. Yet public vitriol on cases of animal cruelty (or senseless killing) is often phrased in language unsuitable for children and even adults. The cry of outrage is resoundingly clear: we like animals, and we don’t like people who don’t like animals. Why on earth would you have thought otherwise? The people you thought were your friends on Facebook? We’re guessing you lost at least of few of them.
This is what happens when you don’t shut up.
