BP oil just announced the launch of their “top kill” emergency relief effort to clean up the oil spill caused by an explosion on one of their rigs — five weeks ago. About time. Maybe they’re starting to get the hint that lagging isn’t fashionable. Last week, a full month after the explosion that caused the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexcio, the Twitter account @bpglobalpr posted its first Tweet: “We regretfully admit that something has happened off of the Gulf Coast. More to Come.”
The strange, hilariously delayed reaction soon proved to be the work of a poser taking shots at the oil giant by parodizing its ignorance and indifference. The hoax clearly resonates with readers: AdAge reported yesterday that it took a mere 50 tweets for the account to rack up 13,000 followers, nearly three times as many as the real @BP_America. It’s suspected that a comedian (or -ienne) over at Funny or Die is behind the wit since the first follower was a writer at the site.
Recent favorites worth retweeting include:
- “Really worried about the effect this disaster will have on bikini season. The sun is still shining ladies, get outt there!”
- “Catastrophe is a strong word, let’s all agree to call it a whoopsie daisy.”
- “Jesus walked on water and soon you can too! (Please pray for BP, we’re losing a lot of oil).”
- And my personal pick: “@wired, how do we know you’re the official twitter account?”
The article also says that BP doesn’t seem to care — or at least isn’t putting much time into fighting the campaign. @bpglobalpr did tweak the logo to not be an exact carbon copy of the authentic one, but no one is threatening legal action to keep the fake Tweets from coming.
Who knows. Maybe BP isn’t resisting the opportunity to have consumers associate their troubled company with a cracked smile rather than outright rage. Maybe they have bigger fish to fry (sorry) than a playful PR hoax.
This may not be a green light to start posing as your favorite public figure, spouting fake quotations, confessing fake sins and provoking a slander suit, but it does beg the question: Whose ignorant alter ego would you want to be?
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[…] Center control room. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that this is a prank from the fake @BPGlobalPR Twitter account. Nope, it seems to be yet another real fiasco to add to the oil spill epic. […]