Would you employ a silly Internet meme just to get attention?

7 Jun 2010

First BP spilled a whole lot of oil in the ocean, destroying marine life and damaging the offshore drilling sector. Then an anonymous tweeter created @BPGlobalPR. The oil company is still trying to clean up the mess; the Twitter account is faring rather better, having generated its very own Internet meme.

As oil continues to spurt into the Gulf of Mexico, defying BP's hapless attempts to stem the flow, the only thing growing faster than damage to the ocean is the number of people following @BPGlobalPR on Twitter. What, you don't care? But #bpcares. So do 124 782 people, and counting.

Just short of a month after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and millions of barrels of oil began spewing into the sea, @BPGlobalPR opened a Twitter account. According to the bio: "This page exists to get BP's message and mission statement out into the twitterverse!"

Okay, not really. The official BP Twitter account is @BP_America, which spews out company spin as fast as it, well, spews oil. @BPGlobalPR, on the other hand, is a laugh a tweet.

Continue reading the full story on www.thedailymaverick.co.za.

About Theresa Mallinson

Theresa Mallinson is an itinerant writer and subeditor who's lived and worked in such exotic cities as Dubai, Vaduz, and Cape Town. For now, she's very happy to be back in Jozi, earning her daily bread working night shifts, and getting her morning kicks from drinking the best coffee in town. (No, she won't tell you where to find it is, 'cos she doesn't believe in product placement.) When she grows up, she wants to be a maverick ( www.thedailymaverick.co.za) You can read Theresa's personal blog at Trinny in Jozi, follow her on Twitter at @trinklebean and contact her on theresa dot mallinson at gmail dot com.

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