A woman lost her NASA internship after beefing with a former NASA engineer on
Twitter. You're watching What's Trending, I'm
Martine Beerman. Make sure to subscribe for more stories about people who shove
their big old foot in their mouth. Oh, and buckle up cuz the story is f***ing wild. A woman
named Naomi H tweeted on Monday August 20th
"Everyone shut the f*ck up I got accepted for a NASA internship." Wow that's like
huge news and absolutely something that anyone could be proud of. Moderately
unprofessional language for someone who's about to enter NASA. But, I can kind of
let it slide. As we'll be saying a couple of times over the course of this story,
could have ended there, but it didn't. Nearly a full day after her original
tweet, Homer Hickam replied with one word "language." Who cares, right? Some old
jackass doesn't like the f-bomb? Big deal. But that's not just any old jackass,
Homer Hickam is a former NASA engineer and author of the memoir "Rocket Boys"
which was adapted into the film October Sky starring Jake Gyllenhaal. But Naomi
who clearly hasn't done her research, a big red blaring flag for somebody about
to enter the National Aeronautics Space Administration, didn't realize that. She
thought she was just dealing with some Twitter troll.
So she replied to Hickam "suck my d*** and ba**s I'm working at NASA" to which he
responded "and I'm on the National Space Council that oversees NASA." Boom! Okay, but
before we get to anything else, does Homer Hickam just spend his days just
idly searching NASA on Twitter? and then on the other side, if you're applying for
an internship at NASA, and Homer Hickam shows up, you should probably know who that guy is.
So right off the bat, some things could have gone very differently. Because if
you're already this cocky before you've even started an internship, how are you
gonna be when somebody's like 'hey, grab me a cup of coffee' or 'here's one piece
of paper I'd like you to make a million copies over the course of this week.'
You'd be like 'yo suck my d*** and ba**s Poof paper in the air, coffee in your face. Okay, well it
could have ended right there, but again, it didn't. Because soon after he
responded, Hickam started being attacked by Naomi's followers on Twitter. And this
has brought some negative attention to furries cause Naomi's avatar appears to identify her
as a member of the furry community. And many of the people discussing the story
and harassing Hickam online were furries as well. But this is more of a story with
the furry community and not a story about furries. But unfortunately, the
feckless toads at 4chan got wind of the story and are trying to make this all
about furry shaming. NASA actually saw all this going on because of the
harassment Hickam was enduring and fired Naomi H from her internship. So, she
deleted her Twitter account and in another account that appears to have
been suspended she confirms that she got fired over the Commons and is now
enduring harassment of her own online. And some furries are being critical of
their own community over how this has played out.
@56KFox wrote "as usual furry Twitter simultaneously makes a dumb
situation worse while never actually posting the full story." But there might
at some point be a happy ending here, because Homer Hickam saw what happened
to Naomi and felt bad. He wrote in a blog post that has also since been deleted "I
learned she had lost her offer for an internship with NASA. This I had nothing
to do with, nor could I since I do not hire and fire at the agency." He added "she
reached out to me with an unnecessary apology which I heartily accepted and
returned with my own. After talking to her, I am certain she deserves a position
in the aerospace industry and I'm doing all I can to secure her one that will be
better than the one she lost." And beef on the Internet have a weird way
of sometimes bringing people together. So, now she has a very powerful friend in
the aerospace industry. But this is yet another example of social medias ability
to create instant communication and oftentimes disastrous overreaction. I get
it, Naomi was really excited about the situation, but I personally don't think
it's ever a good idea to throw swear words around online. Especially when it's
associated with an internship you just got. And I definitely don't think it's
ever a good idea to respond to anyone, especially trolls with more negativity
because I've just breeds more negativity as Naomi's learned from this lesson. On
the other side maybe Hickam will think twice before he trolls the next person.
He could've just picked up phone and been like "yo, what's going on with this
chick? She's like swearing about NASA online and also if you're a community
who wants to defend somebody you feel and Fairley attacked, sometimes your
responses can bring more negativity than good to the situation. As once they get
ahold of it at 4chan, you know it's over, dunzo, *skreeech*. So what do you guys think? Should
Hickam have apologized to Naomi? Should NASA be giving Naomi her
internship back? Let us know in the comments and for more trends head to
what'strending.com