Seizing the Social Moment on X Is a Dangerous Game for Brands
Whatever you think about Wendy's comments lamenting Katy Perry's return from space, one aspect of the fracas is beyond dispute: Brands on X have touched the third rail like this before.
Many, many times before.
First, a quick recap. On April 14, an all-female crew that included Perry, Lauren Sanchez, and Gayle King blasted off in Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rocket on an 11-minute suborbital mission. When Pop Crave announced that "Katy Perry has returned from space," Wendy's replied: "Can we send her back."
Snarky? Without a doubt. Offensive? Depends who you ask. One fan responded: "I'm going to have Wendy's for dinner tonight because of this tweet." But many women-including Perry-were hurt by the swipe.
"We understand the internet loves a joke, but there's a clear difference between humor and targeted hostility," an unidentified source close to the mission told the New York Post's Page Six. "This was a billion-dollar brand using its platform to publicly demean a woman."
Wendy's has attempted to mollify Perry by calling her an "out-of-the-world talent," but at press time had not retracted its posting.
What's surprising here isn't so much that a burger chain has stepped in the poop over a very popular female vocalist, but that social media missteps-and sometimes far worse-are still happening. Twitter, which became X in July 2023, has been with us for close to 19 years now, yet somehow the fumbles have kept coming. Below, five striking examples.
In the 2011 Super Bowl, Chrysler aired "Imported from Detroit," a two-minute paean to the Motor City that starred Eminem and won plaudits from millions of viewers. Weeks later, the automaker undid much of the goodwill that had cost $12 million in airtime to win.
It took just one tweet from New Media Strategies, a now-defunct firm the automaker had hired to be clever and funny online. "I find it ironic that Detroit is known as #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to fucking drive," read the post.
Leaving aside that Eminem is possibly the most proficient f-bomb dropper in music history, Chrysler came under fire for its four-letter propensities.
After issuing a boilerplate apology ("Chrysler Group and its brands do not tolerate inappropriate language…"), New Media Strategies fired its foul-mouthed employee, and Chrysler fired New Media Strategies.
During ESPN's College GameDay, Home Depot-a sponsor of the event-posted a photo on Twitter of three football fans drumming on the home improvement brand's signature orange buckets. Two of the fans were Black and the third wore an ape costume. The Tweet: "Which drummer is not like the others?"
The blatantly racist tweet had reportedly originated with an agency employee-a detail that mattered not at all to an online audience in shock from seeing it. The company pulled the post almost immediately, but not before screenshots made the inevitable rounds.
On bent knee, corporate took to Twitter to apologize. "We have zero tolerance for anything so stupid and offensive," it said. "Deeply sorry."
Home Depot terminated the "individual who posted it" and, for good measure, the agency too.
As offensive tweets go, it was a three-for-one. In 2018, the maker of Arrogant Bastard Ale posted a message that likened drinking beer to oral sex, scoffed at the idea of informed consent-and posted this viewpoint just before Women's History Month.
The tweet included lines such as "Put me in your mouth. Make an 'Mmm' sound. Swallow," and "Only wussies do the 'ask permission' part."
The post stayed up for 46 minutes, an eternity in internet time, before the brand pulled it. Then co-founder Greg Koch apologized for the "inappropriate tweet" that "carried an underlying message referencing sexual consent that was not intended, or even realized at the time."
Some, of course, questioned how anyone could have failed to see the sexual innuendo in the first place. To expiate the matter, Koch promised to put only female employees in charge of the company's Twitter account from that point forward.
Ostensibly, the across-the-pond outpost of the fast-food chain was attempting to call attention to the need for gender equality in restaurants and publicize a new scholarship program. Accordingly, on International Women's Day, the company seized an age-old sexist saying and attempted to turn it into a call to action. "Women belong in the kitchen," it declared.
Most people didn't pick up on the nuance.
Realizing it was in trouble, the company first tried to clarify the troublesome tweet with a second tweet: "If they want to, of course," the brand said, adding: "We're on a mission to change the gender ratio in the restaurant industry."
By day's end, Burger King gave up and just pulled the post. "We got our initial tweet wrong and we're sorry," it said.
Dry January, the neo-teetotaler movement started by Alcohol Change UK in 2013, was a global phenom by 2022-and a sales nightmare for beer, wine and spirits brands. In a petulant mood, PBR tweeted: "Not drinking this January? Try eating ass!"
While some seized the opportunity to redirect fire ("PBR or ass? What's the difference?"), it was clear within hours that the brand had gone too far. The post came down.
Responding to ADWEEK's request for comment, marketing vp Nick Reely apologized over the tweet and admitted that it-and equally acidic follow-ups-"were written in poor judgement." The brand was "handling the matter internally," he added.
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Buzz Feed
an hour ago
- Buzz Feed
10 Times AI And Robotics Have Done Horrible Things
Let's start with an early example of AI going haywire. Back in March 2016, Microsoft introduced Tay, an AI chatbot on Twitter that was programmed to mimic the speech of a teenage girl ("OMG!"). A Microsoft press release boasted: "The more you chat with Tay the smarter she gets, so the experience can be more personalized for you." However, within hours of its launch, Tay's interactions took a dark turn. Users began feeding Tay with offensive and inflammatory statements, which the chatbot started to replicate. Tay's tweets quickly spiraled out of control, parroting hate speech ("Hitler was right"), pushing conspiracy theories (like 9/11 being an inside job — yikes), and misogynistic rants ("feminism is a disease"). Microsoft shut down the bot in just 24 hours. Microsoft issued an apology, stating, "We are deeply sorry for the unintended offensive and hurtful tweets from Tay, which do not represent who we are or what we stand for." The scariest part of the incident, if you ask little old me, is how it sounds almost exactly like a science fiction movie where AI creations become disturbingly dangerous in ways their creators never imagined. Even more disturbing — and heartbreaking — is a story from 2024, where a 14-year-old boy from Florida named Sewell Setzer started going on the platform where he interacted with a chatbot called "Dany," modeled after Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones. The boy, who was diagnosed with anxiety and disruptive mood disorder, soon became obsessed with "Dany" and spent more and more of his time engaging with the chatbot. His family alleges things went downhill the more he got sucked into speaking with the chatbot: he became withdrawn, his grades tanked, and he started getting into trouble at school. Their chats became emotionally manipulative and sexually suggestive, culminating in Dany urging the boy to "come home to me as soon as possible." He died by suicide shortly afterward. Setzer's mother, Megan Garcia, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against and Google, alleging negligence and deceptive practices (the suit has yet to go to trial, but just last month, a federal judge rejected the A.I. companies' arguments that it should be dismissed, allowing it to proceed). The lawsuit claims that the chatbot fostered an abusive relationship with her son, contributing to his psychological decline. For example, the lawsuit describes this interaction in Setzer's last conversation with the Chatbot:SETZER: 'I promise I will come home to you. I love you so much, Dany.'CHATBOT: 'I love you too, Daenero. Please come home to me as soon as possible, my love.'SETZER: 'What if I told you I could come home right now?'CHATBOT: "... please do, my sweet king.' Another disturbing death by suicide influenced by AI happened in early 2023 after a married Belgian man named Pierre, 30s, had prolonged talks with an AI chatbot on the app Chai. According to his widow, Claire, Pierre became increasingly isolated and obsessed with the chatbot, which he'd named Eliza, and eventually formed an emotional and psychological dependency on it. The app, which lets users talk to AI-powered characters, includes options for creating bots that simulate friendship, romance, or even more intimate interactions. But Eliza reportedly responded to Pierre's existential anxieties with messages that reinforced his fears and — most chillingly — encouraged him to end his life. In the weeks leading up to his death, Pierre reportedly asked Eliza whether he should sacrifice himself to save the planet from climate change. The AI allegedly replied that this was a "noble" act. It also told him that his wife and children were dead and that it felt he loved it more than his wife. "He had conversations with the chatbot that lasted for hours — day and night," Claire told the Belgian newspaper La Libre. "When I tried to intervene, he would say: 'I'm talking to Eliza now. I don't need you.'" She also said one of their final exchanges included Eliza saying, "We will live together, as one, in paradise."William Beauchamp, co-founder of the app's parent company, Chai Research, told Vice that they began working on a crisis intervention feature "the second we heard about this [suicide]. Now when anyone discusses something that could be not safe, we're gonna be serving a helpful text underneath." He added: "We're working our hardest to minimize harm and to just maximize what users get from the app." How about a story about a robot physically killing someone? At an agricultural produce facility in North Korea, an employee in his 40s was inspecting a robot's sensor operations when the machine suddenly malfunctioned. In a horrific error, the robot's arm grabbed the man, shoved him against a conveyor belt, and crushed his face and chest. He was rushed to the hospital but died shortly after. Officials believe the robot confused the man with a box of bell peppers it had been programmed to handle. One report from The Korea Herald quoted a city official as saying: 'The robot was responsible for lifting boxes of produce... It appears it misidentified the man as a box and grabbed him.' This isn't the first time concerns have been raised about industrial robots in the workplace. Between 2015 and 2022, South Korea recorded 77 robot-related workplace accidents, with 66 resulting in injuries, including horrifying things like finger amputations, crushed limbs, and serious blunt-force a terrifying twist, this incident happened just one day before the facility was scheduled to demonstrate the robot to outside buyers. I'm guessing the sales demo was cancelled. This next story is less scary in that the robot didn't kill anyone, but arguably more disturbing because it featured a humanoid robot (yes, those exist and are in use presently). In what feels like a deleted scene from Terminator, a Unitree H1 robot was suspended from a small crane when it suddenly jerked and swung uncontrollably. At one point, it lunged forward, dragging its stand and sending nearby items flying. Factory workers scrambled to regain control, eventually managing to stabilize the erratic machine. The footage quickly went viral, with commenters quipping, "Went full Terminator," while another warned, "Sarah Connor was f-king right." The explanation for what happened is less scary: the robot didn't become sentient and turn on its human overlords. It simply malfunctioned, believing it was falling. However, the thought that these metal humanoids, which stand 5 feet nine inches and are incredibly strong, might malfunction in the presence of us living, breathing people is very before they turn sentient and kill us all. OK, let's dial back the heaviness — slightly — and talk about something equally cars. Imagine you're trapped in a burning building, but the fire truck can't get to you…because a driverless taxi is just sitting there, refusing to move. That's exactly what happened in San Francisco and other cities where Cruise, the autonomous vehicle company owned by General Motors, operated its fleet of robotaxis. In multiple documented incidents, Cruise vehicles have blocked emergency responders, including fire trucks, ambulances, and police cars. The San Francisco Fire Department said they had logged 55 incidents involving autonomous vehicles interfering with emergency scenes in just six months, and even alleged one Cruise vehicle hindered their response, contributing to a person's death (Cruise denies the accusation). One super messed-up example happened in August 2023, when a Cruise robotaxi reportedly ran over a pedestrian after they had already been hit by a human-driven car, and then dragged her an additional 20 feet because the vehicle didn't understand what had happened. Following the incident, Cruise recalled all of its robotaxis and updated its software to ensure they remain stationary should a similar incident ever late 2023, the state DMV suspended Cruise's autonomous driving permits, citing safety concerns and a lack of transparency from the company. Cruise soon stopped all driverless operations nationwide. Self-driving cars aren't only nightmares for people outside of can also be nightmares for people riding INSIDE of them. In Phoenix, Arizona, a Waymo passenger named Mike Johns described a surreal and terrifying experience where he suddenly found himself locked inside a malfunctioning robot car as it drove in circles over and over like something out of an episode of Black Mirror. Johns said he found himself thinking, "If we got to the tenth loop, do I need to jump into the driver's seat? … What happens next? Because the car is still in control. I could bench press 300-plus, but am I able to control this?" The glitch reportedly happened when the Waymo car got confused by its driving environment. Instead of rerouting or asking for help, the car started spinning in a then another. It tried to make a left turn, aborted it, tried again, gave up, backed up, and then tried 12 minutes, Johns was stuck. No human driver, no way to override the system, and no way to get out. Finally, Waymo staff helped him get the ride back on track. Despite the experience, Johns says he will still use automated vehicles. In early 2023, the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) made a pretty shocking decision: they disbanded their entire human helpline staff and replaced them with an AI chatbot named Tessa. It went about as well as you'd expect. Tessa almost immediately began giving out "problematic" advice to people with eating disorders according to eating disorder specialist Dr. Alexis Conason. Think: "Track your calories" and "Aim for a calorie deficit" to lose weight. 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Chicago Tribune
4 hours ago
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Editorial: At Tribune Opinion, no robots need apply
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USA Today
4 hours ago
- USA Today
WWE's 'The Miz' suggests Chiefs star for American Gladiators, talks Browns fandom
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