By Vivian Kane | Celebrity | November 10, 2014 |
By Vivian Kane | Celebrity | November 10, 2014 |
Today is most likely the day that someone on Bill Cosby’s social marketing PR team got super-fired. I think the best guess as to what happened goes something like this:
PR GUY #1: Hey, my kid just told me that Bill is “trending” on something called the “internet.”
PR GUY #2: Oh, the “internet.” I’ve heard of that. Maybe we should try to do more internet.
PR1: Great idea! My grandkids keep using this word… meme? It’s an internet thing.
PR2: Okay, no need to look at details, let’s do it!
And then this happened:
Now, while Cosby’s people may have been expecting adorable memes about sweaters and smiles and rainbows, that could only be because they’re not aware of how Hannibal Buress recently changed the Cosby conversation.
I've heard of famous folks who don't read ANYTHING about them. Their news, good or bad, is filtered to them. Only explanation. #CosbyMeme
— Elon James White (@elonjames) November 10, 2014
As anyone who is paying the slightest bit of attention to the internet could have guessed, the memes instead turned out more like this:
.@BillCosby This is fun! #CosbyMeme pic.twitter.com/O1ScpMBzqA
— Matthew Bramlett (@matthewbramlett) November 10, 2014
I made the same face. #CosbyMeme pic.twitter.com/iyuh0okjoQ
— Sean Campbell (@Melanism) November 10, 2014
At least his app asks for consent. #CosbyMeme pic.twitter.com/Z7AHcDz6fq
— Gabe Ortíz (@TUSK81) November 11, 2014
The Twitter explosion has already been getting some criticism for seemingly making light of rape, and it’s true that the flood of rape jokes is disturbing, but that’s exactly the point. No one (or at least no one who gets the irony here) is making fun of rape or rape victims. Instead the focus is on Bill Cosby, who managed to keep his multiple (many, many multiple) sexual abuse accusations out of the public conversation for decades, and now remains clueless that the world (and by “world” I mean “Twitter”) sees him as a monster. And that sort of ignorance, mixed with atrocious actions and longtime abuse of power, is worth a point and a laugh at his expense.
I think Bill Cosby still thinks he's America's Dad and not America's creepy Uncle who's not allowed to visit anymore… #CosbyMeme
— Elon James White (@elonjames) November 10, 2014