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Anna Akana Under Fire For Carrie Fisher Tweets

byDorothy
December 23, 2016

In the horrific awakening of Carrie Fisher’s life-threatening health scare, users were quick to take to Twitter to express concern and worry for the Star Wars actress. During a flight from London to LA to promote her new memoir The Princess Diarist, the star suffered a heart attack and was taken to a local hospital where she was in critical condition. While there were those who were tweeting out their shock and prayers for Fisher’s quick recovery, there was also Youtuber Anna Akana who turned out to have been sitting in front of Fisher on the flight with boyfriend Brad Gage, who both tweeted out to alert social media of what had taken place.

She immediately came under fire for the tweets due to the fact she spread the news likely before any of Fisher’s family would have had the chance to receive word. Many deemed it as inappropriate and disrespectful – with some even going as far as to accuse her of doing it for attention.

Others defended her actions, claiming the public had a right to know what was going on – but the majority of Twitter users were defensive on how the situation was handled due to accused intentions. Anna was quick to shut down those sorts of rumors, claiming her tweets were only an attempt to reach media outlets urgently to alert Fisher’s family, but then also tweeted out to news corporations telling them to stop trying to contact her. The conflicting messages only caused more criticism for her as news sites used her tweets to report on the headline anyway. People were quick to become suspicious of Akana’s intentions as well as scrutinize her for exhibiting hypocritical behavior.

Her actions struck major controversy in the twitter community and she is still under fire for the way she handled the situation. While she believes her tweets were appropriate, it does seem to show a lack of understanding and some insensitivity towards Fisher’s family. While they would have liked to receive the news quickly, it would have probably been better for them to be contacted by a medical professional who had proper information, rather than hearing about it from strangers online.

Although it was a traumatic event that Akana and her boyfriend Brad were unfortunate to witness, more concern for feelings should be directed to Fisher’s family who is very likely to be shaken up and stressing about their loved one who is now in a stable condition in hospital. The criticism Anna currently faces is not due to telling her story,  it’s towards her for telling it at such an inappropriate time. To report on the issue is one thing, but to be the one who actually breaks the news is a completely different subject.

Assuming she’s under the belief that if she hadn’t been the one to break the news, someone else would have is still not a better mindset to be in. Regardless of how the Fisher family would have found out, to be the one to break the news when you’re in no position to has been viewed as immoral by many. While our thoughts are with Akana and Gage for what they witnessed and also with the Fisher family as they go through this rough time, we are also reminded of the lesson that celebrities are people too, and to exploit their situation (no matter what you’re intentions are) is always a risky movement that needs to be handled sensitively.

We wish Carrie Fisher a speedy recovery and all the best for her health.

Author
Dorothy
Dorothy is a Young Adult author who has an obsession with American politics. When she's not ranting at 3am on the internet about why she loves Star Wars, you can find her drinking green tea and binge watching television shows on Netflix in an attempt to avoid her responsibilities.
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