Nothing exemplifies the speed of Internet retribution faster than what happened on February 3 of this week with Kenneth Cole. 

His tweet that started it all:

As terrible as it is and how disturbing that he thought it would humorous, you only have to look at the other ads he has done after other tragedies. One of the more publicized was one that read, “GOD DRESS AMERICA” shortly after 9/11. Of course that was before Twitter. 

Hours after this tweet an apology came via Twitter and Facebook, but the most interesting thing that happened was  @kennethcolePR and #KennethColeTweets sprang up. This happened within hours of Cole’s original tweet. @kennethcolePR had over 6,000 followers by the end of the day and hundreds of people came up with their own parodies with the hashtag KennethColeTweets and thousands more retweeting everything.  A Google search shows over 600 news articles written about the debacle. All of this in less than 24 hours.

Today, it looks like KennethColePR is coming down with an offer:

So, what does this all mean? I can’t say and I’m certainly not a “social media guru”, but it does make me more in awe of the Internet than ever. It is truly this magical thing that can spawn a revolution, it can help you find an old friend, it can teach you just about anything from how to make macarons to how fix a carburetor and it can do all of that in less than a day.