“I expect to be the butt of many jokes for a while now,” Susan Lilly said.
Lilly is the Public Information Officer for the San Miguel Sheriff’s Office. On Monday, she sent a tweet from the agency’s account to warn motorists of a hazard in the eastbound lane of Highway 145.
Large boulder the size of a small boulder is completely blocking east-bound lane Highway 145 mm78 at Silverpick Rd. Please use caution and watch for emergency vehicles in the area. pic.twitter.com/EVMmDf0IJu
— San Miguel Sheriff (@SheriffAlert) January 27, 2020
What she meant to write was, “Large boulder the size of a small car” is blocking the road. Instead, what Lilly wrote reads, “Large boulder the size of a small boulder.” Before she had time to even think about deleting it, Twitter was rolling over the error.
“I took a look and I said, ‘Uh oh. I made a mistake there,’” Lilly told CBS4’s Kelly Werthmann in a FaceTime interview. “Then I saw the numbers just going and going and going.”
Susan Lilly is the Public Information Officer for the San Miguel Sheriff’s Office. (credit: CBS)
Within a few hours, Lilly’s mistake was shared tens of thousands of times, liked by nearly more than 187,000 Twitter users – and the numbers keep climbing! Not to mention the several thousand comments from the confused but amused.
(credit: CBS)
“I particularly like the ones that say that it gave them joy that day,” Lilly said, noting she definitely hasn’t found time to read all 7,000+ responses. “I noticed a lot of meteorologists have (shared it) and a lot of columnists, a couple comedians.”
“NASA shared your tweet,” Werthmann said to Lilly.
“Yeah, I didn’t know that,” she replied.
CBS4’s Kelly Werthmann talks to Susan Lilly via FaceTime. (credit: CBS)
Some responses on Twitter included movie clips, others made memes or edited the image. One user, @TheBrofucius, came up with a name for the fallen boulder, “Biggie Smalls.”
We shall name it…..Biggie Smalls.
— The Brofucius (@TheBrofucius) January 27, 2020
“I guess some people are calling it ‘Internet Gold,’” Lilly said. “I’ve never heard that expression before, but I like it.”
Lilly also wasn’t sure she had heard of one of the many celebrities who shared the now viral tweet.
“Chrissy Teigen, the model. I had to kind of figure out who that was because I don’t pay attention to pop culture,” she said with a laugh. “I mean, I know who she is, but I can’t name a song that John Legend sings.”
Chrissy Teigan (credit: CBS)
Some might say you’d have to live under a “large rock the size of a small rock” to not know who Chrissy Teigen is, but now the Internet knows Susan Lilly and her nickname should be etched in stone.
“I hope I’m known as ‘The Rockstar,’” Lilly said.
Kelly Werthmann
