On the eve of April Fool’s Day in 1848, two sisters in Hydesville, NY, began screaming for their mother. Margaretta, known as Maggie, was 14; Catherine, called Kate, was 11. Something in their bedroom was making thumping sounds, apparently attempting to communicate with them.

The girls asked the Something to copy them as they snapped her fingers; it did. They asked it if it knew their ages; it rapped 14 times, then 11 times. The neighbors were called in to witness; everyone was agog. Arthur Conan Doyle, who discussed the sisters’ experiences in his 1926 book, The History of Spiritualism, wrote, “Over the course of the next few days a code was developed where raps could signify yes or no in response to a question or be used to indicate a letter of the alphabet.”

The otherworldly communications quickly took an unnerving turn. Harry Houdini, who told the girls’ story in his 1924 book A Magician Among the Spirits, wrote, “Some one [sic] asked the girls if a murder had ever been committed in the house. The ominous sounds of the code answered in the affirmative.” Conan Doyle reported that the girls called the spirit “Mr. Splitfoot,” a nickname for the devil.

The family abandoned the house. (Who wouldn’t.) The girls’ much older, married sister, Leah — she was 23 when Maggie was born — took Maggie and Kate to live with her in Rochester, NY. There, the young sisters amazed the neighbors by communicating with their dead children. Leah became Maggie and Kate’s manager; she was soon collecting a dollar a head (around $40 today) from people who wanted to see Maggie and Kate talk to spirits. The girls drew ever-greater crowds. In November 1849, they sold out the biggest venue in Rochester, Corinthian Hall, and demonstrated their powers for nearly 400 people. Some thought they were fakers (Scientific American magazine called them “Spiritual Knockers from Rochester”) but many were convinced. Leah took them on a national tour, keeping them to a rigorous schedule of daily private spiritualist readings and public performances.

The sisters were an early inspiration for Spiritualism — a faith characterized by the belief in communication with departed souls. Spiritualism gained adherents throughout the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, largely in English-speaking countries. Many families lost loved ones in the Civil War, World War I, and the great flu epidemic of 1918. Almost every household at the time was touched by death in some way. Spiritualism gave grieving people hope. At the same time, the development of and advancements in photography meant that people began seeing (apparently) documentary images of ghosts and strange ectoplasm — the supposed physical manifestation of a dead person’s energy. This too helped people believe that their loved ones could reach out to them from the beyond … with a little help from certain gifted souls, who often happened to be attractive young women. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who lost a son in the flu epidemic and whose wife believed she could communicate with the dead, became increasingly passionate about Spiritualism; Harry Houdini cynically pretended to be a medium early in his career but became increasingly determined to debunk Spiritualist trickery. Their differences wound up destroying their long friendship.

Over the years, some mediums recanted and apologized for bilking rubes. Among them were Maggie and Kate Fox. Sort of.

By 1888, the sisters were exhausted. Maggie had been widowed; she and Kate both struggled with alcohol and poverty. They’d had a falling-out with Leah, who had accused Kate of being a bad mother because of her drinking.

In September of that year, Maggie decided to confess her deceptions to The New York World. She was paid $1500, the equivalent of around $51,300 today.

As recounted by Harry Houdini in his book debunking Spiritualism, Maggie acknowledged her and Katie’s actions … but blamed Leah completely. “Katie and I were led around like lambs,” she wrote. “The rooms were jammed from morning till night and we were called upon by those old wretches … when we should have been out at play in the fresh air.” She noted that Leah got rich while she and her little sister did not. “We had crowds coming to see us and she made as much as a hundred to a hundred and fifty dollars a night. She pocketed this.”

Lithograph depicting Miss Margaretta Fox, Miss Catherine Fox, and Mrs. Fish, Currier & Ives, 1852

Maggie went on:

I loathe the thing I have been. I used to say to those who wanted me to give a séance, ‘You are driving me into Hell.’ Then the next day I would drown my remorse in wine. I was too honest to remain a ‘medium.’ That’s why I gave up my exhibitions. I have seen so much miserable deception! Every morning of my life I have it before me. When I wake up I brood over it. That is why I am willing to state that Spiritualism is a fraud of the worst description. I have had a life of sorrow, I have been poor and ill, but I consider it my duty, a sacred thing, a holy mission to expose it. I want to see the day when it is entirely done away with. After my sister Katie and I expose it I hope Spiritualism will be given a death blow.

This isn’t an apology. Maggie takes no responsibility; everything is Leah’s fault. She doesn’t acknowledge that she perpetrated harm. She focuses on her own suffering and her bravery in coming clean (very like the way Mark Wahlberg focused on his own heroism in facing his youthful, racist criminal history, which we discuss at length in our book).

Maggie did a little better at a presentation a couple of weeks later, at the New York Hall of Music. There, on October 21, in front of an audience of 2000 people, with Kate in attendance for moral support, Maggie did acknowledge her own wrongdoing.

I have been chiefly instrumental in perpetrating the fraud of Spiritualism upon a too confiding public, most of you doubtless know.

 

The greatest sorrow of my life has been that this is true, and though it has come late in my day, I am now prepared to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth—so help me God!

 

There are probably many here who will scorn me for the deception I have practiced, yet did they know the true history of my unhappy past, the living agony and shame that it has been to me, they would pity, not reproach.

 

The imposition which I have so long maintained began in my early childhood, when, with character and mind still unformed, I was unable to distinguish between right and wrong.

 

I repented it in my maturity. I have lived through years of silence, through intimidation, scorn and bitter adversity, concealing as best I might, the consciousness of my guilt. Now, thanks to God and my awakened conscience, I am at last able to reveal the fatal truth, the exact truth of this hideous fraud which has withered so many hearts and has blighted so many hopeful lives.

 

I am here tonight as one of the founders of Spiritualism, to denounce it as an absolute falsehood from beginning to end, as the flimsiest of superstitions, the most wicked blasphemy known to the world.

 

I ask only your kind attention and forgiveness, and as I may prove myself worthy by the step I am now taking, may you extend to me your helping hands and sustain me in the better path I have chosen.

This is better, though still not great. She uses the term fraud, and says she repents for her actions (though “repent” is a lot like “regret”; it isn’t quite “apologize” – it’s still about the speaker rather than about those the speaker harmed). She does acknowledge that she hurt people. But she still focuses more on the wrong done to her and she still asks for “pity, not reproach.” A good apology would have taken ownership of her decisions as an adult and focused still more on those she’d harmed rather than herself.

Giving the people what they wanted, Maggie proceeded to describe and demonstrate how she and her sister had made their unnerving knocking sounds. At first, while living with their parents in Hydesville, the two had tied strings to apples, hid the apples in their beds, and secretly dropped them onto the floor to scare their mother. Over time, they learned to crack their finger and toe joints at will, loudly enough to create rapping noises that seemed to come from spirits. (Houdini had earlier called out their toe-bones trick, to Conan Doyle’s annoyance.)

Some victims of spiritualism were happy to forgive Maggie. Here are two letters the newspapers received:

God bless you, for I think that you now speak the truth. You have my forgiveness at least, and I believe that thousands of others will forgive you, for the atonement made in season wipes out much of the stain of the early sin.

 

If, as you say, you were forced to pursue this imposture from childhood, I can forgive you, and I am sure God will; for he turns not back the truly repentant. I will not upbraid you. I am sure you have suffered as much as any penalty, human or divine, could cause you to suffer.

Forgiveness can be healing for those who opt to forgive. It doesn’t mean any of the other victims were obliged to follow suit, however. (As we like to say, apologies are mandatory; forgiveness isn’t.) We who weren’t wronged aren’t entitled to berate victims for forgiving or for not forgiving. That’s their choice.

A year later, Maggie took back her confession. Her spirit guides had told her to lie, she said! They’d been real all along! Also real was the fact that she had run out of money. She was drinking heavily. But recanting didn’t help her career; she wasn’t welcomed back into the ranks of mediums. (Most of them chose not to forgive, it seems.) Maggie and her big sister Leah never spoke again. Leah died in 1890, at 77, well-off, married to a Wall Street banker. Kate died in 1892, at 55, in a drunken binge. Maggie died – penniless and living on charity in an empty Brooklyn townhouse belonging to a friend — eight months later, at 59.

Like Fox Mulder, many still want to believe. In 1904, newspapers reported the discovery of a human skeleton inside a wall in the basement of the Fox sisters’ childhood home. Had this been the murder victim Mr. Splitfoot had told Maggie and Kate about? YES! said the Boston Journal, in a story on November 23, 1904. The discovery “clears [the Fox sisters] from the only shadow of a doubt held concerning their sincerity in the discovery of spirit communication,” the paper intoned. There was no follow-up story noting that the “skeleton” consisted mainly of chicken bones.

Faith can be unshakeable. In 1926, Conan Doyle wrote that Margaret had always been a true psychic who did not understand her own power, was gaslit by her Catholic husband who scorned Spiritualism and convinced her she was lying about her gifts, and only renounced Spiritualism because of “alcoholic excitement and the frenzy of hatred” she felt for Leah, paired with “the hope of pecuniary reward.” (Conan Doyle felt that mediums should receive salaries, so as not to be tempted by either rich jerks or the fear of poverty. How the salary system would work is unclear.)

Today, many stories about the Fox sisters hint that they may have had legitimate knowledge of the spirit realm after all.

Who can prove otherwise?

Happy Halloween.

I’m Sorry You Got Mad, written by Kyle Lukoff and illustrated by Julie Kwon

A picture-book apology triumph! The story — told entirely in handwritten notes passed by a little boy, a teacher, and a little girl — is best for kids age 4–8. Could this be the youngest intended audience ever for a fully epistolary novel? Could be!

The first spread shows a seething little boy hurling a piece of paper that says SORRY on it into a trash can. The second spread shows the kid, still steaming, slumped furiously at his classroom desk with his eyes narrowed and his arms crossed, surrounded by an abused, crumbly eraser and a bunch of crumpled pieces of paper. An all-caps note on lined paper hovering above his head reads “SORRY, ZOE. —JACK.”

Now we know the main character’s name is Jack and it sure seems as if he’s being forced to apologize. The book’s artist, Julie Kwon, is amazing at physically depicting RAGE. We see Jack rabidly (and apparently LOUDLY) sharpening a pencil while other kids look on in alarm. And we see Jack following the instructions on the whiteboard to PAINT YOUR FEELINGS, as he furiously Pollocks all over his paper and spatters a fellow student.

 

 

Rage-sharpening.

A kind reader alerted us yesterday to this apology from Royall Elementary School in Florence, South Carolina. School started there this week, and to welcome students back, Royall offered an “Olympic parade,” celebrating the Olympic prowess of different countries. Fun!

Behold, the depiction of Mexico!

A wall. Border patrol agents. And a cantina.

Many parents, unsurprisingly, were dismayed. “It’s disheartening. It’s sad. It’s offensive. It’s inappropriate all the way around,” Florence 1 Schools parent Annette Fling said in a text message to local news outlet The Post and Courier. 

The school removed the post and posted an apology. Here it is:

SorryWatch’s correspondent correctly assessed this statement as “passive-voice mouth noises.”

Let us compare this piece of caca to our Helpful Good-Apology Rubric:

The statement offers “regret,” an emotion that takes no responsibility for the feelings of others; regret only about how the speaker feels. The word “apologize,” which focuses on the feelings of the harmed party, doesn’t appear until the final sentence. And this is key: The statement fails to say precisely what the “regret” is about. A picture that “showed insensitive disregard for the challenges our Hispanic population faces”? What the heck does that mean? What did the picture depict? (It’s gone, so we have no idea.) Was it the handsome 10-year-old gelding H5 Porthos Maestro Wh Z, the Mexican team’s show-jumping horse tragically forced to withdraw from the Olympics for veterinary reasons? (All healing wishes to Porthos.) Was it the fact that so few people watched Mexico win its very first judo medal ever?

Come to think of it, why should a parade purporting to celebrate Mexico depict “challenges our Hispanic population faces”? Why not, um, celebrate Mexico? But PLOT TWIST, the picture actually DID depict the challenges the Hispanic population faces, by illustrating the very racism that has a huge impact on students in school settings, as well as a total lack of appreciation of the complexity and beauty of Mexican culture AND a lack of glorification of Mexican Olympic athleticism! So you go, Royall!

Here’s what a good apology does: Takes responsibility, names the offense, acknowledges WHY the act was hurtful, explains the steps being taken to ensure that the bad thing doesn’t happen again, and makes amends. None of these elements appear in this statement. And now you’ve tried to hide what the images showed, and you don’t describe the images, folks will have no idea what the apology is for.

The region’s School Superintendent, Richard O’Malley, weighed in: “Today this matter has been thoroughly investigated and those who contributed to this event have been held accountable for their decision-making and actions.”

Great. What does “thoroughly investigated” mean? What does “have been held accountable” mean? Were there consequences? Who was interviewed? Whose idea was it to dress as border agents and make a border wall? How do we know this won’t happen again? Is anyone at this school being educated about why Mexican identity isn’t a problem, but rather something to be celebrated? Will the naughty teachers and administrators be denied Chick-Fil-A boxes? (Chick Fil-A catered the staff development day depicted in the photo that is now the most recent picture on Royall’s page, post-Border-Wall-photo deletion.) Will the school continue to delete comments from anyone calling them to account?

Thankfully, a couple of screenshots exist, from before the Big Censoring, showing that the community wasn’t fooled.

They get it.

Today, the superintendent issued another statement, adding, “I wanted to inform you that, due to the serious nature of this incident, several employees are no longer employed by the district or have been placed on leave by the district’s administration.” OK, who was fired? Who was placed on leave? For how long? Paid or unpaid? Again, there’s a lack of transparency that’s unhelpful.

Let’s hope that individual teachers at Royall are able to show their Mexican students, and all Hispanic students, more grace, joy, and understanding than their administration.

Sorry, Sorry, Sorry’s far more affordable paperback iteration is out today! It’s called Getting to Sorry, and it’s full of the same humor and helpfulness as its predecessor. Learn how to elicit better apologies from coworkers, friends, family, and strangers. Read about why the miraculous human brain makes good apologies so rare. Explore great and crappy apologies throughout history. Find out why so much conventional wisdom about corporate and medical apologies is FLAT-OUT WRONG. And join us in our quest to make the world a more humane place, one good apology at a time.

AND GUESS WHAT, SNARLY JUST LOOKED AND THE KINDLE VERSION IS $1.99 TODAY. That is a Ginsu-knife-level deal.

Your SorryWatchers are really proud of this book, and we hope you’ll consider buying it for yourself, your colleagues, and your loved ones. Bonus: We’ve begun doing lively, amusing, substantive presentations to businesses on how good apologies are a key part of creating a healthy office culture. Reach out via email to book us.

Instead of going with your basic, vanity-based ho-hum “New Year, New You” approach to 2024 resolutions, why not resolve to apologize better, or screw your courage to the sticking place and ask for an apology from someone who owes you one,  this year? We know you can do it. You’re brave.

And one time a candy company nailed it!

A year-end roundup is mandatory, right? So let’s dive right in.

1. Anheuser-Busch CEO feels that transphobia is all-American!

Bud Light, a beer that tastes like why wouldn’t you just drink water, had been performing poorly for years when the company reached out to transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney on Instagram. Alissa Heinerscheid, the company’s vice president of marketing (NOT FOR LONG!), said she wanted to reverse the company’s marketplace slide. “I had a really clear job to do when I took over Bud Light, and it was ‘This brand is in decline, it’s been in a decline for a really long time, and if we do not attract young drinkers to come and drink this brand, there will be no future for Bud Light.’” She added, “Bud Light had been kind of a brand of fratty, out-of-touch humor, and it was really important that we had another approach.” So, the brand, which generally goes undrunk by millennial women who, when they want a low-calorie beverage that tastes like toxic air, drink White Claw, did an Instagram video with Mulvaney. Conservatives went as wild as a cop smashing a car into a gay bar. Kid Rock, wearing a MAGA hat, shot up a case of Bud Light with a semiautomatic rifle, then told the camera, “Fuck Bud Light and Fuck Anheuser-Busch.” Mulvaney received rape threats, death threats, stalkers, and public abuse.

The company’s CEO, Brendan Whitworth, issued a weird statement that was widely labeled an apology.

“As the CEO of a company founded in America’s heartland more than 165 years ago, I am responsible for ensuring every consumer feels proud of the beer we brew. We’re honored to be part of the fabric of this country. Anheuser-Busch employs more than 18,000 people and our independent distributors employ an additional 47,000 valued colleagues. We have thousands of partners, millions of fans and a proud history supporting our communities, military, first responders, sports fans and hard-working Americans everywhere. We never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people. We are in the business of bringing people together over a beer. My time serving this country taught me the importance of accountability and the values upon which America was founded: freedom, hard work and respect for one another. As CEO of Anheuser-Busch, I am focused on building and protecting our remarkable history and heritage. I care deeply about this country, this company, our brands and our partners. I spend much of my time traveling across America, listening to and learning from our customers, distributors and others. Moving forward, I will continue to work tirelessly to bring great beers to consumers.”

This says nothing. Despite the random use of the word “accountability,” it takes no stand at all, except for “Bad publicity is bad” and “Yay, America.” It doesn’t apologize to the conservative men who were furious that the brand worked with a trans woman. It doesn’t apologize to regular folks upset by the company’s refusal to acknowledge the transphobia unleashed by a single Instagram video. It doesn’t apologize to the universe for making a product so undrinkable that, if were Snarly trapped on a desert island with only a case of Bud Light and her own urine, who knows what might happen. And most importantly, it doesn’t apologize to Mulvaney. She never heard from the company again.

@dylanmulvaneyTrans people like beer too. 🏳️‍⚧️🍻♬ original sound – Dylan Mulvaney

Heinerscheid, the VP of marketing, also received threats. She and Daniel Blake, Anheuser-Busch’s senior VP of marketing for Budweiser, were both put on leave. Today, he still has his job; she does not. (Shocker.) As for Kid Rock, with his big compensatory pew-pew machine, he was selling Bud Light at his Nashville restaurant by July. He was photographed drinking Bud Light at a country-rap concert in August. And this month, he said he’d forgiven the brand. “Do I want to hold their head under water and drown them because they made a mistake?” he asked, hopefully rhetorically. “No, I think they got the message.” Indeed, we all did.

2. Fancy furniture CEO visits Pity City!

As the CEO of MillerKnoll, which makes expensive and covetable midcentury furniture, Andi Owen hosted a company-wide online town hall in April, urging staffers to do whatever they could to insure that the company met its earnings targets. When asked how employees could stay motivated if they didn’t receive bonuses, she responded with the corporate equivalent of “Ask not what the $7,995 Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman in obsidian leather and oiled walnut can do for you; ask what you can do for the $7,995 Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman in obsidian leather and oiled walnut.” She snapped, “’What are we going to do if we don’t get a bonus?’ Spend your time and your effort thinking about the $26 million we need and not thinking about what you’re going to do if we don’t get a bonus. All right? Can I get some commitment for that?” She continued, “I had an old boss who said to me one time, ‘You can visit Pity City but you can’t live there.’ So people: Leave Pity City. Let’s get it done.” Owen responded to the very public blowback with an all-staff email. “I feel terrible that my rallying cry seemed insensitive. What I’d hoped would energize the team to meet a challenge we’ve met many times before landed in a way that I did not intend and for that I am sorry.” Why is this a terrible apology? Let’s look at our 6.5 step rubric. Owen doesn’t apologize for what she said; she apologized for how it was perceived. She blames the listener rather than taking responsibility. Her use of “seemed” rather than “was”; her use of “did not intend”; and the extremely limited parameters of what she says she’s sorry for (how her words “landed” rather than what she actually said) are all awful. She reminds me of TikTok’s “Corporate Erin.” 

@lisabevolving #corporateerin #boycottstarbucks ♬ original sound – Lisa Beasley

 

3. Ashton and Mila by the poolhouse with a letter-opener!

You’ve probably seen the Instagram video. After actor Danny Masterson was convicted of raping two women, his former costars Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis sent “character letters” to the judge; these letters are used to ask for leniency in sentencing. Kutcher and Kunis apologized, with somber faces and epic badness. So much sorry if-ing; so much passive voice; so much emphasis on INTENT rather than IMPACT (“we would never want to do that, and we’re sorry if that has taken place”). Saying “we support victims,” when the whole point of these letters was to support the perpetrator, is self-serving and disingenuous. The duo’s tortured syntax (“the pain that has been caused by the letters”) reflects their attempts at deflection. Also, saying, “Danny’s family asked us to write character letters” (as if it had been impossible to say no? as if it’s important to tell us that it wasn’t their idea?) and “[the letters] were intended for the judge to read” (subtext: JEEZ, you people weren’t supposed to know about them!) are ways of distancing themselves from their own conduct. Celebrities: If you can’t take responsibility for your actions, don’t apologize at all. Just don’t.

4. Jimmy Fallon is embarrassed!

In a boffo Rolling Stone expose, 16 current and former employees of “The Tonight Show” described a nightmare work environment. They said that Fallon screamed at the staff, sometimes seemed drunk or hung over, was capricious and forgetful, and fostered a truly toxic workplace culture. It was so bad, the staff created a “cry room” where they could go to sob after an encounter with Jimmy. After the story came out, Fallon apologized to staff via Zoom, saying, “It’s embarrassing and I feel so bad. Sorry if I embarrassed you and your family and friends. I feel so bad I can’t even tell you.” He added that he never intended to “create that type of atmosphere for the show” and said, “I want the show to be fun, [it] should be inclusive to everybody. It should be the best show.”

Hi! I’m not a douche!

Need we say why that apology blows? Again, let’s go to the steps! There’s that “sorry if” again, and the fact that he makes it all about his feelings, his shame, his mortification, rather than how his behavior affected others (step 3). The issue isn’t that the staff were embarrassed; it’s that they were SCREAMED AT. He doesn’t explain the steps he’s taking to ensure that the bad behavior won’t happen again (step 5). He doesn’t make amends (step 6). And a Rolling Stone follow-up said that staffers are still distressed that Fallon hasn’t made a public apology. Public figures, when called out, need to apologize both publicly and privately. Otherwise, the effect is to convey that problems are simply being spackled over, glibly moved past, coated with something like, oh, a coat of brown greasepaint or something.

5. Lauren Boebert is very gropey. Wait, no. She’s very SORRY.

In September, Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert was ejected from a touring production of the musical “Beetlejuice.” Her camp offered two apologies. The first, issued before there was extensive video evidence of what precisely transpired, was snarky bullshit. Her campaign manager offered the neener-neener,“I can confirm the stunning and salacious rumors: in her personal time, Congresswoman Lauren Boebert is indeed a supporter of the performing arts (gasp!)” Boebert herself tweeted, “I plead guilty to laughing and singing too loud!” There was also a wee zinger wishing that the Biden administration would police the nation’s borders as capably as the local theater policed people having fun. Also, reports of vaping were fake news!

The second apology was issued after footage came to light showing Boebert repeatedly vaping, being rude to the pregnant woman seated behind her who asked her to stop vaping, giggling as her date kept groping her boobs, and reaching between the legs of her date FOR REASONS. She was also seen wagging her finger in the face of security officers, to whom she apparently offered a “don’t you know who I am?” followed by a threat to “call the mayor.” The second apology was less snarky, but just as bad.

“The past few days have been difficult and humbling, and I’m truly sorry for the unwanted attention my Sunday evening in Denver has brought to the community. While none of my actions or words as a private citizen that night were intended to be malicious or meant to cause harm, the reality is they did and I regret that. There’s no perfect blueprint for going through a public and difficult divorce, which over the past few months has made for a challenging personal time for me and my entire family. I’ve tried to handle it with strength and grace as best I can, but I simply fell short of my values on Sunday. That’s unacceptable and I’m sorry.”

Welcome to a show about death!

Again, this is all about HER feelings (sense a pattern with these celebrity apologies?), how the relentless news media have affected her (“the past few days have been difficult”), blaming her “public and difficult divorce” (so … it’s OUR fault! we’re the public!) and coming up with a creative excuse for initially lying about the vaping:

“Whether it was the excitement of seeing a much-anticipated production or the natural anxiety of being in a new environment, I genuinely did not recall vaping that evening when I discussed the night’s events with my campaign team while confirming my enthusiasm for the musical. Regardless of my belief, it’s clear now that was not accurate; it was not my or my campaign’s intention to mislead, but we do understand the nature of how this looks.”

If she ever says another word about drag queens being a risk to our youth, someone please trot out this footage.

6. “That wasn’t me; it was artificial intelligence!”

In a conference call earlier this month, the president of the Illinois NAACP objected to the government providing aid to migrants at the expense of local unhoused Black people. Teresa Haley recorded saying,“These immigrants that come over here, they’ve been raping people, they’ve been breaking into homes. They’re like savages as well. They don’t speak the language and they look at us like we were crazy.” Another NAACP leader, distressed by the comments, resigned. When a local TV station reached out to Haley in Dubai, where she’d gone on vacation, she first denied making the statements, then suggested they were faked. “With AI, anything is possible,” she said. Her apology went pretty much the way you’d expect.

“First and foremost, I express my sincere apologies to anyone who may have been hurt or offended by my comments. I love and value all members of our communities — including immigrants. I have worked tirelessly to advocate for the underserved and the voiceless. I remain focused on denouncing injustices, racism, and discrimination. I am empathetic to the plight of all people, and I proudly serve as a beacon of hope to the hopeless. I embrace the mission of the NAACP, which is to ‘Achieve equity, political rights, and social inclusion by advancing policies and practices that expand human and civil rights, eliminate discrimination, and accelerate the well-being, education, and economic security of Black people and all persons of color.’”

That’s a whole lotta words about how wonderful she is, and a whole lot of not addressing what she actually said.

AND FINALLY! SorryWatch resolves to taste the rainbow, even though we’re M&Ms people

Look, we need to end this post on an upbeat note. Behold, one really good corporate apology.

In 2013, lime Skittles were replaced by green-apple Skittles. Lime lovers were upset and extremely vocal about it. Nine years later, the company launched an “Apologize the Rainbow” campaign. Skittles went live on Twitch and Twitter — and on an electronic billboard in Times Square — to deliver 138,880 personal apologies on Twitch and Twitter to all 138,880 people who’d complained online about the loss of lime Skittles. All 138,880 people were also offered a free package of Skittles consisting entirely of lime Skittles. (OK, eagle-eyed reader will note that this happened in 2022, but it got a bunch of advertising awards in 2023, so it counts. Also, we didn’t hear about this in 2022. #SorryNotSorry.)

In addition to this video, there is a 36-minute version with the delightful nebbish-y actor reading dozens of tweets and saying “We’re sorry” after every single one.

A creative director at DDB, the agency charged with creating the campaign, said in an interview, “We looked at so many corporate apologies, and they all had a few things in common: They were pretty hollow, generic and really gave the impression they were being forced to do it. We took the exact opposite approach. Not only did we make ours insanely personal by literally apologizing to each of the 130,880 person who complained, we also proudly surfaced all that online anger towards Skittles since it actually showed the passion people had for Lime.” The exec, Colin Selikow, added, “Apparently, changing the flavor of green Skittles has ruined childhoods, and it’s responsible for evil winning.”

Oh, Colin. As long as individuals — whether they are famous, non-famous, or candy — are willing to apologize well, and as long as people of good faith are willing to accept apologies made by people who apologize sincerely and want to do better, evil will not win.

Here’s to a 2024 in which celebrities provide less dipshittery and real people impress us with their ability to listen, learn, and apologize. 

It’s probably a coincidence that all these ways (spoiler alert: terrible) dovetail with our contention that a good apology needs to start with the words “I’m sorry” or “I apologize.”  That said, we might accept the “Here is $50,000.” And “Thank you for the opportunity to grow” is new to us, skin-crawlingly horrifying, and in need of inclusion on a Bad Apology Bingo card, stat. (Informative Caption is true: it really does “let people know that you are truly unbearable to be around”!)

Also, The Onion’s two-line observation about why “Forgive me” is not a good thing to say is more succinct and probably more effective than our eons of at-length explanation and hectoring about it:

Indeed. We know that a lot of teachers encourage kids to conclude an apology to a classmate with “Please forgive me” or “Will you accept my apology?” But we feel strongly that “I hope you’ll be able to forgive me” or “I’m going to work hard to try to earn your forgiveness” is way better. Asking for forgiveness is like asking for a gift. It’s rude. We don’t think kids should put their classmates on the spot like that, and we don’t think forgiveness is a quid-pro-quo after an apology. And um, we don’t want our children to make other children have to choose whether or not to be dicks.

In other news, check out this quick Yom Kippur-targeted primer on How to Teach Your Kids to Apologize. Spoiler alert: You have to apologize all year round. Snarly wrote this piece for PJ Library, a program modeled on Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, that sends free books about Jewishness and Jewish values to kids all over the world. (Our book Sorry, Sorry, Sorry: The Case for Good Apologies has a list of great classic children’s books about apology; one of them, Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes, is carried by PJ Library.

Some other PJ children’s books that aren’t mentioned in our book, but that Snarly also really likes, are: New Year at the Pier by April Halprin Wayland; Gershon’s Monster by Eric A. Kimmel; Sam & Charlie (and Sam Too) by Leslie Kimmelman; and Oh No, George! by Chris Haughton. The first three are explicitly Jewish; the last one is doggish.

For more thoughts on Yom Kippur and apologizing, check out our early posts on Maimonides. And Shana Tova to all who celebrate.

Sumac is at Burning Man, making it a good time to re-point your attention to Apologies From the Desert With No Pants On, one of our first popular posts. (How have we been doing this for over 10 years?!) If you or someone you love is currently in the desert, pants on or no, do pay a visit to Camp Playapology. FYI, Sumac will be giving a presentation there on Wednesday, August 30. at 3pm PDT.

Behold, a sneak peek of Playapology’s cards for this year!

We hope you’re staying safe and apologizing well, wherever you are.

Sorrywatch fam! We have an excellent corporate apology to share! And it’s from a brand Sumac and Snarly both love!

Nooworks is a small, woman-owned company in California that manufactures wildly patterned, delightful textiles. (The company name is derived from the owner’s dog, The Noo-Noo, which pleases us Teletubbies fans.) Nooworks collaborates with independent artists whose limited-edition designs are printed on plant-based fabrics at an industrial rotary plant in Los Angeles and turned into clothing at a factory in Oakland. Snarly’s husband is on his way to Burning Man as we speak with two of the three Nooworks jumpsuits for which they share custody.

If you see a 50something man on the playa wearing this, say hi!

The company has rabid fans who await new patterns while salivating. (It also has non-fans who point out that pieces can fit inconsistently, that sizing is weird and skews small, and that some of the fabrics pill too easily. And Nooworks isn’t cheap – but ethically made clothing shouldn’t be. Snarly often buys hers on resale sites.)

If you’re ever in San Francisco or Los Angeles, where the two physical stores are: SAMPLE SALES!

Anyhoo. The apology story. Last Friday on Instagram, Nooworks teased the drop of a bright yellow fabric covered in folk-arty leopards and snakes, called Serpentine, created by a blonde California surfer-food stylist-designer of Swedish heritage. Within moments of the post’s appearance, customers began pointing out that the design was super-duper … reminiscent of the work of Brazilian designer João Incerti.

Nooworks: Look at the snakes.

Incerti: Now look at THIS snake. (Look at the snake, then back at me. Now at the snake, now me.)

The size and shape of the snake, the coils, the placement of the eyes, the orientation and spacing of the jagged triangle border around the snake are identical. One savvy Instagram detective noted that the black and white stars and moons in the new Nooworks print were exactly the same as the stars and moons in a different older Incerti work, and the leaves around the cheetahs matched precisely to the leaves in that same Incerti work. Commenters also went to the California artist’s site and found multiple works that mapped unnervingly to the works of artists on the site Artfully Walls.

Nooworks replied in comments that they were looking into the situation. The artist who’d done the print for Nooworks took her store’s site down and made all her social media accounts private. Nooworks told commenters it had reached out to Incerti but hadn’t yet heard back, and that it “certainly won’t be profiting off of this and are looking to put the financial funds towards the best use. Artist compensation included.” Commenters bayed for blood. What exactly did “financial funds” mean? Why was Nooworks posting anything before hearing from Incenti? How dare they sell this work at all? Eventually, Incerti himself commented:

Hey! Thanks for sharing my work ❤️ Unfortunately copy is very common nowadays with the internet, but I’m happy that you didn’t do it on purpose, different then many others brands, big and small ones! It’s unbelievable sometimes 😢 I didn’t know your brand before, wish you success on your journey :)❤️

Within a few hours, Nooworks shared a Notes App statement saying they were postponing the release.

The text reads: We want to start with our sincerest apologies. We are so grateful for our community for bringing this to our attention. We were made aware yesterday that some artwork in our newest print has been heavily influenced by another artist. We were just made aware of this artist yesterday and have since reached out to them in hopes of finding a positive resolution. We’ve yet to hear back but also understand that they really have no liability to get back to us since this is truly not their problem to fix. We’re uncomfortable releasing this print under any artists name and have made the decision to donate 100% of the profits to the following two organizations: @rainforestus and @yeahart_ . We plan to release all product we have on the site Monday 8/21 at 5am. In addition we’ve brought back the 20% off sale which will apply to all full priced products because we cannot stand behind this product 100%. Sale is active now and applicable to all full priced NW. We understand a larger company would likely put these in landfill but we work really hard to be environmentally conscious in our business practices so that didn’t feel right either. We’ve unfortunately completed production on this print and all goods are already in our warehouse. It is one of our main company values to work with and support original artists. Jen and I are so sorry we missed this sooner and truly hope we can find a positive outcome to a horrible situation.

(Some text is missing from the screenshot, but it appears in the body of the post, above.)

Soon there was an addition to the image: “UPDATE: the drop will be on Monday with the real artists, @o_incerti ‘s permission. We’re so sorry and have been working as fast and diligently as we can to supply you with some answer.”

Nooworks also sent an email to customers:

On Instagram, yelling continued. Some commenters applauded Nooworks’s transparency and attempts to do the right thing. Others felt that until there was complete resolution, Nooworks shouldn’t be making statements at all. Some weren’t sure from the wording of Nooworks’s statements whether Incerti was being paid; some wanted the fabric not to be sold at all; some wanted Incerti to pick the charities the sale would support.

The next day, Saturday, there was an update: “The drop will be on Monday with the real artist, @o_incerti‘s permission. We’re so sorry and have been working as fast and diligently as we can to supply you with some answer.”

The artist who made the yellow Nooworks print remained silent. But her site reappeared, without the works that commenters had noted were wildly similar to ones on Artfully Walls. (She’s still selling items that feel derivative of Commes des Garcons’ hearts with eyes, but they’re not direct copies.) Some of her friends braved Nooworks’s Instagram to point out that snakes and leopards are common in art right now, that their friend was an ethical person, that going private and remaining silent were necessary responses to avoid being bullied by an angry mob, and that a lot of artists’ work is similar because that’s the nature of art. All points worthy of discussion … though they don’t address the fact that such EXACT copying is never OK. We’ll update this post if she makes a statement.

SorryWatch is willing to entertain the idea that this artist genuinely didn’t understand that what she did was wrong. She changed the snake’s colors. She put elements from different Incenti works into the same work. Perhaps she thought remixing constituted fair use. Perhaps she thought “everyone does it.” Here’s a parallel: Many people don’t believe that pasting text from Wikipedia, with slight rephrasing, is plagiarism. Many people don’t understand that rewriting ChatGPT a bit isn’t creating new work. Not all artists or consumers agree on the placement of the border between influence and full-on copying.

Yesterday, the yellow print — its name no longer Serpentine — appeared on Nooworks’ site. On Instagram, an announcement:

It’s here: DESERT DISASTER is officially out! All profits from this print will be donated to the Rainforest Foundation to help Indigenous and traditional peoples of the world’s rainforests in their efforts to protect their environment and uphold their rights and Yeah Arts, funding art education making arts education more inclusive, accessible and relevant. You can shop this print in store as well! We originally planned to drop this over 3 weeks so there are still a few styles that are in various stages of production which we listed in our stories with dates!

They also noted that Incerti would be paid. And extended the offer of 20% off everything on the site as a kind of apology to customers.

We think Nooworks handled this really well. Let’s look at our 6.5-part rubric, shall we?

1. Say you’re sorry.
2. For what you did.
3. Show you understand why it was bad.
4. Only explain if you need to; don’t make excuses.
5. Say why it won’t happen again.
6. Offer to make up for it.

Six and a half. Listen.

Nooworks crushed five and a half of the steps! We’re really impressed by the company’s efforts to keep the community posted, in spite of customers’ strong emotions and conflicting demands. Not making a profit on this was the right thing to do; not selling it at all (the clothes were already in production) is too much to ask.

What could the company have handled better? Only step 5: How will they insure this won’t happen again? In future, Nooworks will have to do image searches, or more EXTENSIVE image searches than they’ve been doing, to ensure that the designers they collaborate with are submitting original work. (We’re sure the artists have to sign something saying their prints are original. The problem is that some folks may not understand what that means, and others may lie.) And as one Instagram commenter noted, “Generative AI is only going to make this situation more common.” Passing off other people’s work as your own is only getting easier. Some companies even welcome computer-generated work, because it’s cheaper (hello, movie and TV studios!). Fun with capitalism!

Nooworks also might take this opportunity to think harder about contracting with white artists who play with indigenous visual themes. So many companies produce art that invokes motifs and stories from marginalized communities but isn’t made by people from those communities, the folks whose history is being referenced (and profited from). Even when the intention is purportedly positive — to honor a tradition — or the artist doesn’t completely comprehend that they’re ripping off a heritage and visual language that isn’t theirs, it’s the wrong thing to do.

Ironically, it’s not clear that Incerti (who has created prints for the Brazilian fashion label FARM Rio, for Anthropologie, and for Bombay Sapphire) is an indigenous artist himself. The complexity! Snarly has a ton of Brazilian family — Mr. Snarly’s grandfather, fleeing Heidelberg shortly before Kristallnacht in 1938, wound up in Indiana, but his great-grandmother, great-aunt, and great-uncle all wound up in Brazil, and generations later, there’s a wide array of Sao Paulo cousins. They’re native Portuguese speakers and don’t look like stereotypical Eastern European or German Jews. But does that give them the authority to deploy imagery from indigenous South American art in their work? (You tell us.) Then again, the history of our own American art forms, Broadway musicals and jazz, are rife with appropriation from African and African American culture (and in Broadway’s case, also Eastern European Jewish melodies) – the line between appropriation and adaptation, between acculturation and abscondence, can be mighty hard to discern.

One thing is certain. Snarly’s niece Lucy (in Nooworks leggings) and Lucy’s cat Alex are incredibly cute.

Snarly’s fave Nooworks prints feature glorious midcentury-vibe-y flowers, psychedelic lobsters, and purple leopard print. She stalks Poshmark for a dress in a discontinued pink-and-black print by cartoonist Jay Howell, depicting witches hats, squiggles, hearts, mice and lumpy skulls — it reminds her of weird 1970s French comic books. Oh, and then there’s that banana print! A nifty thing about Nooworks is how stylistically wide-ranging these patterns are, with good representation of artists from a variety of backgrounds and cultures. There’s just no need for “ethnic” designs that don’t represent the actual background of the artist. Hire folks from the cultures being referenced.

Snarly in her #1 fave Nooworks dress.

(Snarly’s culture is mushrooms.)

The upshot is that Nooworks handled a rotten situation beautifully, under a ton of pressure. Bigger companies could learn a lot from them about good apologies and about making things right.

A crucial element of a good apology is understanding the difference between explanation and excuse. Many of us mess this up. An explanation offers context that’s helpful to the person receiving the apology; an excuse offers context that’s designed to make the person who is putatively apologizing look less guilty.

A kind SorryWatch reader sent us this letter from 1890 (EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND NINETY!), showing that even way back before there was social media, a prominent personage understood the difference between explanation and excuse. We don’t have the full text of the letter, so we’re not sure if the fellow used the words “I’m sorry” or “I apologize,” but the part of the letter we DO have is a perfect example of taking responsibility. Check it out.

In November 1890, the British journal Knowledge: A Monthly Record of Science ran a review of an astronomy textbook by Charles A. Young, professor of astronomy at the College of New Jersey (renamed Princeton University six years later). The review was largely favorable, though it took issue, as one does, with the section on meteoric debris. The unnamed reviewer also had concerns about Young’s discussion of the sun. Which was “treated…very meagrely”! JEEZ, Professor Young, what about the polarized light of the corona?? Or the connection between the corona and the development of sun spots?! AND, the review noted, there’s only one picture of a corona, “and that is wrongly oriented. It has its northern pole where its eastern equatorial region ought to be.” Gotcha!

The review noted, with some condescension toward the former colonies: “With all the advances that America has made, authors have more to contend with in the land of Franklin than they have here. The number of printer’s errors must have been very annoying to Professor Young.” PITY about the United States’s substandard printers.

Nevertheless, the review concluded, “Professor Young is an accomplished practical astronomer, and a teacher of great experience, as well as a popular exponent of science in lucid and simple language. He is also a man of wide reading, and the combination has given us an astronomical text-book of exceptional value.”

Professor Young responded to the review with a letter in the next issue of Knowledge:

To the Editor of Knowledge:

….There is just one thing in the critique which I want to ask you to correct, because it does an injustice to others. My printers were to blame for only a very small proportion of the errata that occurred in the book. For most of them I am myself responsible. The preparation of the last half of the book (after p. 200) and the proofreading of the whole was done by me in a time of great distress (owing to my son’s illness); and though I do not plead this circumstance as an excuse, it is an explanation, at least in part. I really wish you would take occasion to say editorially that “whatever blame may attach to the numerous errata in Prof. Young’s General Astronomy belongs almost entirely to himself, and not to the printers,” or something to that effect…. C. A. Young

A.C. Ranyard, Knowledge‘s editor, noted that Young’s son had been gravely injured by an electrical shock, which surely was a distraction for him at the time. Ranyard noted, “We are now so widely welcoming the Dangerous Demon of Electricity, that the accident to this promising young electrician (whom I remember as an Eclipse observer in Colorado in 1878) cannot be too widely used as a warning.” Indeed.

Further, Ranyard observed that the November 1890 edition of Knowledge might not have been the place to snark at American printers. “Our last number was not a fortunate one in which to allude to the mistakes of American printers,” he wrote. “It contained a good many printers’ errors – probably due to the fact that it was the first number printed by fresh printers.” MMMKAY.

Young’s attempt to make sure the printers weren’t held responsible for his mistakes reminds us of NASA launch manager Wayne Hale wanting to be sure that the factory workers who’d installed the foam insulation on the Space Shuttle Columbia weren’t blamed for the foam’s cracking. Taking responsibility for errors is a hallmark of good leadership.

And Professor Young sounds like a good egg in general: unpretentious, eager to popularize science, willing to admit when he was wrong—professionally as well as personally. A 1909 obituary in Astrophysical Journal noted, “To those who missed the opportunity of knowing him, it may be said that he was thoroughly infused with the true scientific spirit—ever ready to modify theory to accord with newly discovered facts, and to accept the revision of what were once the best facts available as new information was obtained by experiment and observation. He was entirely free from the dogmatism that often grows upon men with an enlarging reputation as authorities upon a subject. His modesty, even humility…was a true characteristic of his greatness.”

Young left academic life in 1862 to fight for the Union in the Civil War, an experience that had a longterm impact on his health. When he returned to teach at Dartmouth, he made time to lecture at women’s colleges as well (Dartmouth was, of course, all male), and despite his growing international scientific stature, he regularly contributed to Popular Science magazine. He even wrote occasional science articles for New York newspapers, which “did not at that time crave sensational articles so much as now,” the obituary in Astrophysical Journal helpfully noted. (The obit added that “probably the financial stress, so familiar in the experience of college teachers, was also a partial motive for some of these contributions.”) Even his most scholarly work was written accessibly, “in such a simple and interesting manner as to attract and hold the intelligent general reader.” He was a man of strong Christian faith (he’d even attended seminary school before choosing to focus on astronomy) but “there was not to him any serious antagonism between the fundamentals of science and of religion,” the obit said. “This position gave him considerable influence among those having to do with theological instruction; and, on the other hand, it had its useful effect upon his many college students, who had for him only the highest respect.” His students also liked the fact that his lectures “were enlivened by a quaint humor” and that he learned every student’s name, even in his large lecture classes, which brimmed with students “attracted probably more by the teacher than by the subject.”

In short, he sounds like the kind of guy who’d be generous to admit that he wrong when presented with new data. Who’d take responsibility for his mistakes. Who wouldn’t throw the people who printed his books under the bus.

Be like Charles.