Let people recover from an awkward moment without making it their new introduction.

Small stumbles are survivable until someone decides to keep them alive. Retelling the moment, even fondly, hands a person a label they did not choose and cannot easily put down. Most people recover from embarrassment quickly on their own, and what slows the recovery is an audience that keeps bringing it back.

If someone near you fumbled something recently, stop referring to it, including as a joke. Give them an ordinary conversation about something else entirely. Let the most recent thing anyone remembers about them be more recent than their worst minute.