Mr. Jones, a fine actor on the first-season-was-awesome-and-then-oh-GOD-but-I’m-not-giving-up-yet television program Sleepy Hollow, is known for his skilled use of social media. He has, however, not always knocked his social-media apologies out of the park, as we have discussed on this very site.

But he may have learned! Here is a SorryWatch-relevant snippet from his wise post-Sally-Hemings-twitter-screwup series How To Not Be A Dick On The Internet. 

I would like to contextualize this statement. Mostly I agree. If the screwup admits his or her wrongness and apologizes and makes clear he or she has been educated about his or her wrongness, we should indeed move on! BUT: the screwup does not have the right to tell others to move on. The moving-on is decided upon by those who are being asked forgiveness, not by the person asking. The asker has no right to demand or even encourage movement from the ask-ee. Part of the art of apology is understanding that you do not get to noodge people into forgiveness.

The apologizer’s job is to be humble, to listen and learn, to accept that people may still be angry or upset. Do not rush, apologizer. Your job is to weather the storm following your apology-worthy utterance and yes, even the storm following your apology. Suck it up. Apologize well, then shut up. You have to earn the onward movement.

And for those on the receiving end of the apology: do listen to Orlando, and be open to the notion of moving on. Do not let the outrage machine go into overdrive for a minor offense. Save the not-moving-on for the big despicable vile offenses, lest we all experience outrage burnout. We need our outrage.