A communications expert losing her book deal because she failed to realize how Twitter would react to her snitching on a transit employee is the 2019 definition of irony. And that's exactly what happened to social media pro and author Natasha Tynes. Tynes' book deal was revoked after she ratted out a DC Metro employee for eating on the city's trains. Tynes, who has since made her account private, tweeted out a photo of a WMATA employee eating on the train and tagged her employer in the post.
"When you’re on your morning commute & see @wmata employee in UNIFORM eating on the train,” Tynes wrote in the since deleted post. “I thought we were not allowed to eat on the train. This is unacceptable. Hope @wmata responds.”
Tynes shared that the woman told her to "worry about herself," when she confronted her over the food. She failed to follow that sage advice, however, and the bad blood her tattletale tweet generated was enough to endanger her publishing deal.
Rare Bird Books, a company that was scheduled to distribute Tynes upcoming novel, shared that they would no longer be working with her. Via The Washington Post:
“In response to the incident, Rare Birds Books, a publishing house that was set to distribute Tynes’s upcoming novel, “They Called Me Wyatt,” has decided not to do so. The book is about a Jordanian student who is murdered and realizes that her “consciousness” has inhabited Wyatt, a 3-year-old boy with speech delays, according to the synopsis.”
The company also pressured Tynes' publisher California Coldblood to reconsider its relationship with the author. They postponed the book's release and said that Tynes needed to use her platform more responsibly.
“We do not condone her actions and hope Natasha learns from this experience that black women feel the effects of systematic racism the most and that we have to be allies, not oppressors," the publisher wrote.
According toJezebel, Tynes has apologized for the offending tweets, saying that she is “truly sorry" for her actions.
