An order of chicken nuggets with a side of chaos
McDonalds’ latest Twitter mishap has users in a McFlurry over their stance on the president.
Yesterday morning, a tweet from the corporate McDonalds account blasted Trump and praised Obama. The tweet stayed up for about twenty minutes before McDonalds deleted it and released an apology, stating their account was hacked.
Not my McDonalds
However, in the meantime, the internet lost its collective mind.
#BoycottMcdonalds began trending among conservatives, with users declaring they would never eat at the chain again.
One user tweeted, “my #POTUS disgusts you? You disgust #America! My family is done with you!” Some posted the corporation’s contact info, encouraging people to call McDonald’s directly to voice their resentment.
Hacked by the Hamburgular
Many knee-jerk reactions followed suit from people supporting the tweet as well.
Those who found the tweet funny suggested McDonald’s character Hamburglar hacked the account.
One user tweeted, “I’ll buy 100 McNuggets right now if you put the tweet back up.” Others said although they’re not McDonalds fans, the tweet inspired them to stop in to the restaurant for the first time in years.
Mixed reviews
After McDonalds removed the tweet and issued their statement, Twitter users were unsurprisingly still a mix of pissed off and delighted.
Depending on which hashtags you followed, people continued praising or decrying the incident.
The explanation of a hack seemed to do little to change anyone’s minds.
Conspiracies galore
Those in support of the hacked tweet chalked it up to a disgruntled employee going out in style.
Another user tweeted, “I like to think that McDonalds found out about that tweet then waited juuuust a couple more minutes before they took it down.”
Despite the claim of hacking and removal of the tweet, many users overwhelmingly still supported the original statement deriding the president.
Twitter P.I.
On the other side of the argument, users cried out for an apology from the company. They claimed that removing the tweet did not go far enough for damage control. Also, apparently Twitter is full of amateur investigative journalists.
It was quickly brought to attention that Robert Gibbs, former White House press secretary to Obama, is currently employed as McDonald’s chief communication officer.
Speculation regarding his involvement lead some to believe the hacked tweet was an insidious inside job rather than an external hack as the company claimed.
Throw common sense to the wind
Though the tweet was clearly a departure from McDonald’s typical social media presence, people love sticking to their feelings regardless of fact.
To be fair, we don’t know who the hacker was.
Sure, it theoretically could have been a top tier corporate employee. But there are so many better ways to take down a company than an errant tweet.
NBD
McDonald’s handling of the situation, in addition to initial customer reactions, probably won’t affect them in the long run.
[clickToTweet tweet=”There were people eager to join a new boycott and people willing to rekindle their love of fast-food.” quote=”For everyone eager enough to join a new boycott, there were just as many willing to rekindle their love of fast-food for the sake of making a statement.”]
People love being mad and they love being right. Anything popping up that supports already held beliefs, even if the information is faulty, will spread like wildfire.
Quick to opine
Snippets of information integrate very quickly into people’s reality, regardless of the source or reliability.
Some who jumped on the #boycott may never hear about the follow up regarding the hack.
Likewise, a few people who have willingly re-subjected themselves to eating at McDonalds won’t find out their newfound loyalty is in vain.
Just an oops
Go ahead and add this latest incident to the growing list of corporate Twitter mishaps.
File it under proof that people often don’t care very much about actuality, so long as what’s funneling in supports their own created reality.
