Timing can either be perfect or unfortunate depending on the context. Freudian slips, or an error in speech usually believed to give insights into the mind, have been more frequent with the rise of social media. For social media fashionista Xenia Tchoumi, celebrating New York Fashion Week sparked lots of drama, and not for her outfits.
Russian model Xenia spent New York Fashion Week posing for Instagram. In a weird coincidence, the social media star made a post signifying her 18-year anniversary of her fashion career…on the same day as 9-11. After captioning the picture Making it dramatic since 2001 with a backdrop of the New York skyline, fans instantly took to Instagram to express their distaste in the post. For Americans, September 11th is a tragic event that will never be forgotten, being the date terrorists crashed into the World Trade Center and killing many civilians. After fans expressed how inappropriate they found the post, mentioning Making reference to 2001 is not a joke and Youll never truly understand that significance, an embarrassed Tchoumi immediately modified the caption, realizing her Freudian slip. Her new caption expressed her regrets and explained it was a coincidence and there wasnt any malice behind the post.
Xenias spokesperson quickly came to her defense, saying “She had acquaintances who lost people during the event and she really is heartbroken. She deeply respects every soul who suffered in this terrible event that she still remembers clearly today.” Xenia also mentions how insensitive the media can be and how quick they are to demonize people, especially on social media. In another unfortunate series of events, media outlets fabricated the time Xenia shared the post so it was around the same time the first plane actually crashed into the World Trade Center. In her Instagram caption, Tchoumi states, I know it seemed intentional but it totally wasnt & some journalists know how to amplify any word for clickbait to make you look evil. For example, they made up and straight up LIED about the time of the post to make it look purposeful.
Instagram, with the help of an unfortunate coincidence, helped Xenia bring awareness to how insensitive the internet can be. Nowadays, the benefit of the doubt is almost non-existent. As a Russian model, even though well-informed about American history, Xenias followers automatically assumed that she didnt have a place to even comment, despite the intention of the post being an accident. Before assuming the post was unintentional, fans and the media didnt bother to inquire about her ignorance and educate her on how big of a tragedy Americans believe this event was. Instead, everyone pulled out their internet pitchforks to attack a woman who was simply celebrating Fashion Week. Hopefully, the silver lining of this story is that going forward, before assuming our neighbor, whether a social media influencer, media correspondent, or skyscraper employee, is intentionally trying to mock our countrys tragedies, we can all take a step back and ask ourselves, Was this to hurt us? Or was this indeed a Freudian slip?
