A woman in Connecticut, US, who goes by Han on X (formerly Twitter), has found herself at the centre of a social media storm after posting what she thought was a harmless joke; the internet strongly disagreed.

A few days ago, Han shared two selfies. The first showed her grinning, while the second looked like someone had just cancelled her favourite pizza order. The caption read: “When the Uber says it’s on the way vs when it says it’s an Indian male driver.”

The post went viral for all the wrong reasons, with hundreds of comments condemning it as racist. The internet, as it often does, didn’t stop there. Soon, Han’s real name and personal details were exposed, and her family reportedly faced harassment.

From jokes to jobless

Things took a serious turn when Han revealed in an update on 9 January that she had been fired. She did not disclose where she worked but mentioned she was a waitress – making it clear that her online joke had cost her an offline paycheck.

“I guess doxxing me and harassing my family wasn’t enough,” she wrote, clearly fuming. “The moment has come where I have been fired from my job because of the joke I tweeted on here. Kind of insane that a couple seriously insecure people can actually take your job from you over something so dumb! Is this the part where I get famous and start going on podcasts!?”

While Han seemed eager to kickstart a potential new career as a podcast guest, commenters suggested she might want to reach out to X instead. Elon Musk, after all, had promised to cover legal fees for people fired or 'treated unfairly' for their tweets.

For now, Han says she plans to pursue the matter with X. Whether her case will make it to Elon’s desk — or a podcast mic — remains to be seen.