Sometimes a joke just doesn’t work.
For example, the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service tweeted and subsequently deleted a Gilbert Gottfried-esque misfire about the “Storm Area 51” movement.
On Friday DVIDSHUB tweeted a picture of a B-2 bomber on the flight line with a formation of airmen in front of it along with the caption: “The last thing #Millenials will see if they attempt the #area51raid today.”
If death is easy and comedy is hard, jokes about wiping out millennials with precision guided munitions are particularly difficult to pull off. The tweet no longer exists online, but Task & Purpose was able to get a screenshot of it before it was deleted.
“Last night a DVIDSHUB employee posted a tweet that in NO WAY supports the stance of the Department of Defense,” DVIDSHUB said in a statement to Task & Purpose on Saturday. “It was inappropriate and we apologize for this mistake.”
This is far from the first time that the U.S. military has screwed up on Twitter. On Dec. 31, U.S. Strategic Command deleted a New Year’s Eve tweet indicating it was about to ring in 2019 with a thermonuclear holocaust.
STRATCOM, which has purview over the U.S. military’s nuclear arsenal, tweeted a video of a B-2 dropping bombs along with the joke: “”#TimesSquare tradition rings in the #NewYear by dropping the big ball … if ever needed, we are #ready to drop something much, much bigger.”
Shortly thereafter, the command issued an apology, saying the tweet was “in poor taste.”
Apparently, the only thing funnier than the end of all life on Earth is crushing children’s belief in Santa Claus. On Oct. 25, 2017, the Air Force official Twitter account tried to settle a Twitter battle between Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, and Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, by revealing that Santa isn’t real.
After the Washington Examiner wrote about the OPSEC SNAFU, the Air Force retreated by tweeting, “Santa is real.”