Boo: It’s me, the ghost of your Twitter past

At 08:30 am sharp, he was due to be at 25 Canada Square. He had carefully selected his outfit the night before, and had gently laid out his choice of a lilac shirt, an orange tie, a navy blazer and matching trousers on his bedroom floor, to save time pulling these out of his wardrobe in the morning. He had also set aside a gold tie clip, gifted to him by his mother a few years earlier, which he intended to wear for luck. It would still be dark out in the early hour that he had scheduled his alarm for, and when this did go off, he knew that he would be in competition with the clock to eat, wash and then get dressed.

Before selecting his outfit, he had spent that evening reviewing his CV. He reviewed it with the precision and scrutiny that a scientist would inspect a delicate specimen under a greatly magnified microscope in some far away laboratory. After all, he considered his CV a oeuvre d’art and took great pleasure in seeing his many accomplishments, made even greater when his young age was considered, listed in bullet points on a page like fine strokes from a brush on a Monet. He was right to be boastful; he graduated from university at the top of his class and at the age of 25, had established a company applauded by business giants. But despite these late-night preparations, he considered his life a work in progress to this point. Because tomorrow, at 08:30 am sharp, he was due to be at 25 Canada Square for an interview. An interview where he could prove his worth for his dream job.

His career was built on careful planning. As part of his job, where he traded stocks and shares, he felt that he had proved himself a responsible person, who would make the sensible decision in any situation. Naturally, he had therefore allocated strict intervals to eat, wash and get dressed that morning, and had practiced his bus journey to Canada Square on several occasions. He was a man of maturity and was determined to demonstrate his prized attributes of accountability and trustworthiness to the interview panel which he would face.

As expected, he arrived at Canada Square on time, if not 10 minutes early. Clutched firmly in his hand was the jet-black folder that contained his CV, which documented 25 years of achievements. And as he made his way by elevator to the twenty-seventh floor of this glass enclosure, it was clear to those who he shared this slow ride with that he was confident about the events that would be about to unfold. A smile, although small, was fixed across his lower face. It was a testimony of his success. The elevator travelled vertically, counting the numbers 24, 25, 26. Then 27 flashed across the control panel. It stopped. The doors opened, and he exited.

‘Ah, good morning, sir. You must be Mr Troye Murray. Do come in’, a small, elderly women from across the room called out. Her short grey hair that resembled a thin layer of dust and the wrinkles etched into her skin foregrounded her age over that of her colleagues beside her.

‘Good morning. It is a pleasure to meet you’, Troye responded with confidence, as he pulled out a chair from beneath the table.

‘Please, don’t sit. There’s no need’, the women hastily retorted. Her head had been positioned firmly down since he had entered the room. Her eyes never looked up; they only moved from side to side, scanning the text on a page in front of her.

There was silence. Until she spoke again, ‘on 14th March 2014, the day after same-sex marriage was legalised in the UK, you tweeted something that I find utterly disgusting and in conflict with our company’s values. For the sake of my colleagues, I refuse to read it aloud. Can you justify what you tweeted?’

Troye was quick to respond and did so confidently, ‘Well I apologise, but you must be mistaken. You see, I don’t have an active Twitter account’. But then he froze. His face turned pale, as if he had caught glimpse of a ghost. He was right, he didn’t have an active Twitter account. In fact, he had completely forgot it existed. It must have been at least 4 years since he last logged in. He was a different person now, he thought, surely? He couldn’t remember a single tweet that he had made.

But Troye looked up and caught glimpse of the page which the women’s eyes had scanned mechanically. On it, in neat bullet points, like fine strokes from a brush on a Monet, was a list of tweets that he had made as far back as 2007. Some were racist, some were sexist and some were homophobic. He was in the far away laboratory now, and tweets he made aged 15 were being analysed like delicate specimens under a greatly magnified microscope. They had come back to haunt him.

With thanks to Cerys Keen.