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‘Dear Intern’: Monica Lewinsky gives advice to HBO Max’s new guy after viral goof

June 19, 2021 | | Print Article

Former Bill Clinton intern Monica Lewinsky had some sage tongue-in-cheek advice for an intern at HBO Max who accidentally sent out a viral “test” email to subscribers: “It gets better.”

The intern goofed and sent subscribers to the entertainment network an odd email on Friday that had a subject line of “Integration Test Email #1.” The body of the email informed recipients: “This template is used by integration tests only.” Many thought that it was spam or a phishing scheme but it was just an intern’s mistake gone viral.

HBO Max sent out a message on Twitter to their customers: “We mistakenly sent out an empty test email to a portion of our HBO Max mailing list this evening. We apologize for the inconvenience, and as the jokes pile in, yes, it was the intern. No, really. And we’re helping them through it. ❤️”

Lewinsky, who is known for her witty quips on Twitter as well as her affair with former President Bill Clinton, tried to alleviate some of the intern’s chagrin: “dear intern: it gets better. ❤️ ps. don’t wear a beret for awhile, k?” The last bit was a humorous reference to the former intern’s beret that she wore in an iconic photo while posing next to the Clintons.

In 2014 she wrote: “It’s time to burn the beret and bury the blue dress.”

The term “Dear Intern” trended on Twitter with 4,500 tweets as of Friday afternoon as scores of professionals and ordinary Americans expressed solidarity with the anonymous HBO Max employee. Many shared their own humiliating stories from early in their careers.

In May, Lewinsky broke the internet with another comeback tweet when UberFacts asked: “What’s the most high-risk, low-reward thing you’ve ever done?” She simply answered with a graphic of wide-open eyes alluding to her consensual affair with the former president and it went viral.

Lewinsky is also famous for a 2019 reply to a tweet that made fun of her time as an intern.

She answered a tweet that asked, “What’s the worst career advice you’ve ever received?” She answered with: “an internship at the white house will be amazing on your resume. 😳”

She has recently taken a production deal with 20th Television ahead of the latest installment of the “American Crime Story” anthology series following the Clinton impeachment.

The anti-cyberbullying advocate and Vanity Fair contributor is a producer on the series, along with actress Beanie Feldstein who is portraying her. Other cast members include Clive Owen as Bill Clinton, Edie Falco as Hillary Clinton, and Sarah Paulson who plays Linda Tripp.

Other social media users good-naturedly piled on to note the viral HBO Max email: “Lol if it turns out the HBO Max email goof is a stunt for a new show called Integration Test Email then congrats to the marketing team,” wrote one subscriber. “In all seriousness though hugs to the soul whose having a tough night because of this goof — I promise you’ll bounce back. we’ve all made mistakes, this will make quite the story one day.”

Director James Gunn took a poke at the mistake and said that he hoped the incident was a new marketing technique for his upcoming show “Peacemaker.”

“Hoping the Integration Test Email #1 I just got from @hbomax is somehow the first step in extremely clever viral marketing for #Peacemaker,” he kidded.

“Never empathised more with a stranger than with the intern who sent the HBO Max integration test email #1,” another wrote. “We’ve all done worse buddy.”

And there were many more…

“It’s an email. At least you didn’t erase the entire Community Access TV station’s chyron graphics archive on accident,” wrote another sympathizer, signing it with, “A Broadcast Engineer who once erased all the chyron graphics at a Community Access TV Station by accident when he was an intern.”

“I once globally took down Spotify,” claimed another, who said it almost happened twice.

Another accidentally emailed every staffer on the Senate Judiciary Committee, stating, “I’m bored; is anyone doing anything interesting?”

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