5 Things You Need to Know About Justine Sacco's Twitter Fail

• 01

  1. This is the tweet that started it all:

  

  Yep, that's a real tweet. By a real person. Who's probably about to be unemployed.

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• 02

  2. Justine Works for InterActiveCorp

  

  IAC owns a number of websites you may recognize, including Match.com, OkCupid, CollegeHumor, and Urbanspoon. Justine Sacco is (was) a public relations representative for the company, so you'd think she'd know better. Apparently, she doesn't.

  
  

  The company had this to say about the incident:

  This is an outrageous, offensive comment that does not reflect the views and values of IAC. Unfortunately, the employee in question is unreachable on an international flight, but this is a very serious matter and we are taking appropriate action.

• 03

  3. The Internet caught wind of her terrible tweet and ran with it using the hashtag "HasJustineLandedYet"

  
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• 05
  

  Even Google got in on the action!

• 06
  

  Yep, she's a meme now.

• 07

  4. One amazing soul bought justinesacco.com and redirected it to Aid for Africa

  
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• 08

  5. Once she landed, she deleted her twitter

  

  UPDATE:

  IAC says they have "parted ways" with Sacco, and she's released the following statement:

  
  

  Words can not express how sorry I am, and how necessary it is for me to apologize to the people of South Africa, who I have offended due to a needless and careless tweet. There is an AIDS crisis taking place in this country, that we read about in America, but do not live with or face on a continuous basis. Unfortunately, it is terribly easy to be cavalier about an epidemic that one has never witnessed firsthand. For being insensitive to this crisis – which does not discriminate by race, gender or sexual orientation, but which terrifies us all uniformly – and to the millions of people living with the virus, I am ashamed. This is my father's country, and I was born here. I cherish my ties to South Africa and my frequent visits, but I am in anguish knowing that my remarks have caused pain to so many people here; my family, friends and fellow South Africans. I am very sorry for the pain I caused.

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