CHICAGO, Ill.—A Twitter faux pas has led Pitchfork writer Madison Fairweather, 26, to lose the respect of her audiophile colleagues.
Having just finished writing a review for the sophomore release of a band you've probably never heard of, Fairweather rewarded herself with a social media break.
"Normally I'm really good at scrolling past videos on Twitter, but today I accidentally clicked on a tweet that caused a video to automatically play," said Fairweather. "To my horror, the video's soundtrack was One Direction’s 'Best Song Ever.'"
One Direction
Fairweather frantically attempted to silence the audio on her phone but it was too late.
"The damage had been done," said Fairweather. "Everyone was staring at me from over their Macbooks, and the girl who sits next to me starting crying."
Chaos erupted in the newsroom, with one graphic designer exclaiming, "What madness is this?" before grabbing Fairweather's phone and throwing it to the floor.
"He started stomping on it, but he wasn't wearing any socks or shoes and was actually hitting 'play' with his toe every time he kicked it," said Fairweather.
Fairweather was called into her editor's work pod, where she attempted to explain what happened.
"Madison tried to say it was just a video tweet that loaded automatically as she was scrolling past, but we at Pitchfork take offenses like this quite seriously. Someone had reportedly seen Justin Bieber on her Spotify playlist last week, so we were already keeping a close eye on her," said her editor, 17-year-old audio savant, Jasper Playlock. “It didn’t help her case at all that she seemed to be pretty upset the day One Direction broke up."
Fairweather was placed on probation, where she’s been tasked with researching obscure Costa Rican noise pop.
“We’re not sure such a band even exists, but we’ve heard rumors and it’s up to Madison to unearth it. A little crate digging will help get her back on the path to musical righteousness,” says Playlock.