There’s a certain responsibility that comes with managing a major brand social media account with millions of followers. Being careless towards someone can result in a huge response from thousands of other people that may not have been expected. Worse, if the person being “dogpiled” isn’t ready for the negative attention of thousands of people, it can be a serious threat to their mental health. Remember, we’re not always talking about grown, mature adults. Sometimes we’re dealing with kids who can mistake online responses with real life. Those aren’t always the same.
Such is the case with one user on Twitter who simply asked Star Wars to not be “political” in response to their pride month push. For some reason, the people behind the Star Wars account then responded… and continued to respond as waves of negative attention to the person. Here’s the record as saved by Twitter account “Data Racer”:
The Star Wars Twitter account has bullied a fan off social media.
They went after a guy with only 2 followers for calling out their cringe comicbook.
Claiming to be against harassment, Star Wars celebrated the 1,000s of nasty replies that bullied someone off Twitter. pic.twitter.com/oNHc0SeSIj
— Dataracer (@Dataracer117) June 16, 2022
https://twitter.com/Dataracer117/status/1537378028191293440
While this one person was being slammed with comments from the Star Wars account and thousands of fans, you would think a moderating voice would have come through to say, “ease up.” After all, there wasn’t anything explicitly or extraordinarily negative out of the original critic. The person just asked that Star Wars stop being “political.” However instead of someone with some level of influence saying something along the lines of “we respect all viewpoints” or “be kind,” instead things just heated up. Lucasfilm creative lead and head of the Story Group, Pablo Hidalgo, came forward to encourage the Star Wars media managers who were handling this situation:
https://twitter.com/pabl0hidalgo/status/1536862372664553472
Overall, this is all gross. What if someone commits suicide because they’re being slammed by thousands of strangers? Good grief, people, mature! And Pablo Hidalgo should seriously just be ashamed. It’s not the first time.
So in review, Star Wars is apparently political and explicitly so going forward. If you disagree, the actual brand may lead a dogpile against you. Don’t expect help from voices of leadership inside Star Wars and Lucasfilm. But here at That Park Place, we’ll continue acting like adults. Be kind to others, respect differing opinions, watch out for those who are clearly on the far smaller side of power in any situation.
Maybe one day Disney’s studios will learn that. Until then, they’re more like the Sith they invented…
Updated at 4:15 PM EST to correct a typo. Thank you to TexasAndroid for letting us know!
Disney needs some mass firings at Lucasfilm. Outside of the direct Mandalorian crew, they need to clean house.
Pablo Hidalgo leaving LucasFilm will be a good sign in the culture war.
Good on Dataracer117 for continuing to keep Twitter receipts. Wouldn’t it be something if all those receipts reach to the level of Chapek or Susan Arnold (like that one rumored board meeting she had) and they take that as justification to fire these clowns or cut their contracts short.
I second that
Typo alert. In one of the middle paragraphs instead of saying “stop being political” the article says “top being political”.
This is Star Wars.