Watch Out For Social Media

This week I wanted to discuss the hot topic surrounding allegations against Bill Cosby. As you all may have heard either from Cosby's career, or more recently, he has numerous negative publicity to address concerning sexual assault allegations. When hearing about this topic, I found it very interesting that this issue started to pick up again because of a social media back fire. Those managing Bill Cosby's website (http://billcosby.com/) had created a meme generator for the celebrity. A meme is typically a humorous image with some short blurb on it. The most popular ones tend to go viral and are seen by many. I can assume the meme generator was supposed to be for fans of Cosby and a way to have his fans be engaged. Unfortunately this backfired for the star and brought more heat to him. 

Media Gone Wrong

People out there who saw this generator decided to portray Cosby negatively and use his own troubled situations to be funny. This is far from funny for the star. Memes created by the public have opened up more questions for sexual assault allegations which Cosby has been facing through the years. His team who created the generator had initially promoted tweeting their fun creations to Bill Cosby, which made this whole situation worse because it easily grabbed attention. With the option of social media, especially Twitter, it is so easy to hashtag and search such images or posts. Social media has made it so easy to share information instantly, which can be very bad for situations such as Cosby's'.

What to Do?

http://diymusician.cdbaby.com

Those who manage Cosby and his publicity/online presence have since taken the generator down, which is a great first step. From what I have learned through my courses, there are a few actions to take with these situations. I have specifically learned the three "A's". These are acknowledge, apologize, and act. I believe this could be part of Cosby's rebound to this situation. It does not matter whether the allegations are true or not, he needs to acknowledge what has occurred through social media. His team must apologize for the stir and share that this was of course not the intent. They need to act by taking the generator down and through positive work try to create a better image of Cosby after the meme incident. 

The Big Take Away

The big take away I provide to you all from this situation is this: expect the unexpected. Bill Cosby's team did not intend to create the meme generator for negativity, but it fell under the unexpected. There is always something that can go wrong and not everyone will take what you post the same way. Social media provides many benefits but also creates the possibility for negativity and the ability to falsify information.

To see more on this social media back fire:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/sns-wp-wp-root--bc-cosby15-20141115-story.html