By now, many people within South Africa’s news-following public are familiar with the recent burst of racism that took place on South Africa’s twittersphere involving a model and a “model”. Mistakes were made, but the backlash and long-term effects from a social and mainstream media clamouring may have devastating consequences on the individuals involved.

Things begin to go pearshaped when the media is inaccurate with information that disperses frantically when a news story of this nature breaks.

2oceansVibe spoke with Anita Hollis, Take 10 Casting’s Director, and 21-year-old Tshidi Thamana’s now ex-agent.

Tshidi is one of the “models” embroiled in an unfortunate racial slurring scandal that took place over the weekend. But, Tshidi isn’t even a model, Hollis said.

Tshidi has had one minor extra role in the South African soapie, Generations, and has never shot a single campaign or job as a model.

Tshidi is a student, who works part time, and she had recently updated her portfolio for the Take 10 Casting’s website.

Her mistake was to tweet that people should have a look at her new portfolio, and thus she was branded a model.

Granted, in the social media environment, news tends to move at an incredibly rapid rate, and the veracity of those early facts can often be difficult to establish.

And racism sells well in South Africa.

Hollis said that the majority of the reporting around Tshidi’s case had been sensationalistic. Hollis was even quoted by another media house as having “fired” Tshidi; that wasn’t even the word Hollis had used. “It’s fair to say that the media stereotyped Tshidi,” continued Hollis.

Research into the long-term effects of cyber-bullying is largely unknown, especially in South Africa. In places like the US, cases of suicide as a result of cyber-bullying are on the increase. As more and more South Africans gain access to the Internet, so too will they be more likely to encounter cases of cyber-bullying. While many might argue that Dos Santos and Thamane are deserving of every shred of criticism aimed in their direction, the two women have been on the recieving end of graphic, hateful, and what some might consider threatening remarks on myriad online platforms.

There are other knock-on effects too: Hollis has herself received numerous threats from the public, despite having severed ties with Tshidi as a result of the incident. “Some of these people are ridiculous,” she says.

It was South African cartoonist and satirist, Jeremey Nell, who responded on Twitter that the public was actually giving him more ammunition for his upcoming work, rather than the women

Both of the young ladies’ first rushed apologies spoke of their non-comprehension, and naivety at what was about to unfold. Dos Santos even made the front page of the Daily Mail.

Hollis explained that in the time since Thamane’s ill-fated tweet, she has not been able to reach her, and has left numerous voice messages on her phone.

She did however receive a text from Thamane apologising for the grief the incident has caused:

I am really sorry for causing Take 10 this headache and dragging you into this. I know what I did was wrong and know you are not supporting racism.

Then a politician, the DA’s Mmusi Mmainane, got involved. He even texted Hollis last night to expedite an answer to his offer of a dinner date for the two women at his home. And the political points scoring hasn’t stopped there.

Today, for instance, the Western Cape ANC provincial chairman Marius Fransman called on DA leader Helen Zille to apologise for Dos Santos’ tweet.

He claimed the flare-up of racism on social networks came in the wake of her “refugee” Tweet.

People who indulge in such slur and derogatory or hateful references should apologise to all South Africans, beginning with Zille.

While Zille’s choice of words was certainly not ideal, the bigger picture is that she was highlighting the absolute dire situation that is the state of the Eastern Cape education department.

Unfortunately the stigma attached to the word “refugee” foiled a very important fact and message from resonating in the minds of the public: many years after Apartheid, not much in the way of education has changed in the Eastern Cape.

These won’t be the last of these kinds of incidents, but we do need to be mindful of the bullying that takes place as a result – the effects of which we really don’t know yet either.

Thamane deleted her Twitter account in the wake of her incident, but someone has already appropriated it and begun tweeting from it again. At least they had the satirical foresight to include a link to an anti-racism Wikipedia page.