A professor pulled the ‘Don’t you know who I am card?’ to try and bully Marriott into banning Fox News from being played on a TV at a NYC hotel gym.
Michael Mann, who leads the atmospheric science department at Penn State University, tried to shame the hospitality giant into changing the channel by bragging about his Twitter following.
The pompous professor began his quest on Saturday, having spotted the offending channel being played while working out at the Marriott Times Square’s fitness room.
He took to Twitter and raged: ‘Dear@MarriottBonvoy: The Fitness center at your NYC Times Square hotel has TV fixed on “Fox News”— a network that promotes anti-American, pro-Russian propaganda.
‘The manager of the facility says he can’t change the channel, it is set by you. This is deeply offensive.’
Marriott initially ignored his screed and follow-up nags from Mann, prompting the egotistical academic to up the ante by boasting about his 206,400 followers.
He sniped: ‘Hi @MarriottBonvoy — Don’t want to pull rank, but I’ve got more followers than you. And the tweet now has 3k+ likes, 130k+ impressions and 10k+ engagements. And a large number of folks have said they’re no longer staying at @Marriott full stop. A response would be appropriate.’
In response to the tweet, Mann received a large amount of support from those with a common distaste for the conservative news network, who were ready to denounce the Marriott on the spot.
But the academic – who appears to spend much of his day retweeting progressive outrage on Twitter – also received backlash from people who called him an officious ‘Karen’, and who pointed out that he could just ‘change the channel.’
Among those who blasted him were journalist Glenn Greenwald, who accused Mann of having a ‘barren life’ and nothing better to do than complain about hotel TV channels.