By Steven Petrow
The ladies who lunch have been having a rough time of it lately in the “Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis” Facebook group, whose mission is to mark, as one member posted recently, “All things Jackie.” Meaning not just her iconic style and faultless manners but also JFK’s trysts, the assassination — everything. Over the past few weeks, however, there has been some downright ugly brewing — even in this online Camelot.
Trouble showed up in new member Dani (her real first name), 26, a self-described Republican, who is shown posing on her own Facebook page with a Remington 870 shotgun in hand. No question about it, she’s an outlier in this closed group that has grown by more than 500 percent in the past year, most of whom came of age when Kennedys ruled the Earth and who show no end to their adoration of the late first lady.
Of all controversies (think the Bay of Pigs and Vietnam), Dani upset the group’s usual decorous behavior in a flame war over — Marilyn Monroe. Like many Kennedy debates, this one started with the sanctity (or lack thereof) of the late first couple’s marriage and spiraled into verbal fisticuffs. “Who are you to trash a mistress Jack was sleeping with by calling [Monroe] a tramp? It is well documented that [she] had emotional insecurities and was easily taken advantage of by several men,” Dani wrote, abandoning any pretense of showing respect to her elders.
(Although a new member, she already had adopted the group’s reflexive familiarity of referring to all Kennedys by their first names. No “Mr. President” to be found in these threads; he’s simply “Jack.”)
Soon enough, hundreds of posts overflowed on the group’s Facebook wall:
Susan: “Dani, you seem so angry and I am beyond it. . . . No one takes up the air as you have.”
Dani: “I’m tired of it all and I’m tired [of] stooping to other people’s levels just to defend myself and my opinion.”
Some tried to use proper manners to change the subject. “So anyway, about Jackie. . . .” posted one of the few male members, to no avail. Finally, another member begged Dani: “Please keep all that ranting to yourself. . . . Miss [sic] Onassis would not approve – she would wince, you do understand, to be a part of a group where so much vulgarity is present.”
At that moment the generally even-tempered moderator Steven L. Brawley jumped into the fray with a warning right out of “Emily Post”: “Isn’t life complicated enough without arguing with people on Facebook? JBKO would not be amused I’m sure.” To help his members remember just what group this was, he posted a photo of a button that asked: “What Would Jackie Do?”
Some took the hint. One who goes by Sherry answered: “She would embrace this girl and mentor her. And handle it with grace and style.”
Then, as suddenly as she had appeared, Dani threatened to quit the group, using very un-Jackie-like language that can’t be reprinted here. This proved to be the tipping point, as her threat was applauded by many in a series of equally ungracious posts, including this one from Heather: “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.” Another posted a photo of Joan Crawford with the caption: “Bezerk!” With that, Dani’s name turned from blue to gray, signaling in Facebook-land that she had left the group.
With Dani quickly becoming a distant memory, the banter continued a bit longer. “Can everyone please let this go?” Sherry asked. “Jackie I am sure would have — politely shifting to something positive and kind.” Then, she asked her fellow members to “never speak of this again. LOL, seriously.”
Since then, moderator Brawley laid down Jackie’s law to his Facebook group: “Steven has final say and will delete any members, posts, or comments he deems inappropriate at his discretion.” Because, no doubt, that’s what Jackie would have done.
As the first lady once said, “I want minimum information given with maximum politeness.” Not a bad rule, especially in this age of social media.