The Monterey Bay Aquarium had a huge mess up earlier this week and of course, it went viral. In an effort to be cool and get some laughs, the Aquarium completely missed the mark. While giving one of their otters, Abby, a little attention, they in turn made a few references that were considered “insensitive.” In their words, “several terms referenced originated from African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and specifically reference Black women’s bodies. Using them in a sea otter meme without that background makes insinuations we never intended. We need to do better.”

I remembered seeing this on Instagram earlier this week and stopping dead in my tracks. How many other instances have there been like this one where a company or an organization tries to make a funny tweet and instead gets dragged for it? The answer is plenty of times in the last year. It’s fascinating to me because we live in this current time period where a role that didn’t exist 10 years ago is now crucial to a brand’s reach. With that responsibility though comes a whole lot of risk. There’s this interesting balance that social media coordinators and managers have to find in being relevant, concise, and funny while going viral, but not offensive. Who could live with that kind of pressure? 

Sure, there’s a certain degree to it that I have to think about for my blog, but we’re not big time enough for that yet. That’s why this type of career is so fascinating to me because there’s so much at stake. My guess is that this will likely blow over. That something like this will happen again to another company in the next few weeks and will continue to happen for years because no one knows how to get it right. 

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