Social media is a powerful tool in 2018. In this day and age, if you aren’t on your game 24/7, someone is going to knock you down a peg. If you’re going to tweet something, you better damn well prepare to ride that statement out or admit you were wrong. But, you sure as hell can’t act like it doesn’t exist. Toledo is learning that the hard way. You may say it makes sense to back off this proposal, and it’s okay for you to be wrong, but they recently offered to change their mascot to Shrek if a tweet got 500,000 retweets. Regardless of where you stand on the issue, “Toledo Shrek” just has a might fine ring to it, doesn’t it?
It appears as though the University Of Toledo has deleted its promise to change its mascot to Shrek if it got 500K retweets. Was getting roughly 1,000 retweets a minute towards the end. pic.twitter.com/fqrQPUItkv
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) April 24, 2018
Does anybody have a backbone anymore? Do people not commit to the things they say these days? I know, I’m going a little “old man yells at cloud” here, but come on, people. If you say you’re going to change your mascot to Shrek, then by George, if those conditions are met, you change your mascot to Shrek. The PC police are everywhere these days, I guess. But, who says it’s not right for a university to be represented by a cartoon ogre in the first place? I mean, is a rocket even much more cooler than Shrek? Trick question: a rocket is NOT cooler than Shrek at all – GTFO.
All I’m saying is that what could’ve been a brilliant marketing win was ruined by people who don’t know how to stand up for what’s right. But, this is all pure bull hooey if you ask me. And, I’ll tell you what, if this article gets 20 shares on Facebook, I will tweet the official account of the Toledo Rockets and shake my fist at them. How does that sound? A little bit of street justice for these pansies!
According to Rovell, a Toledo spokesperson would go on to say:
“The tweet was meant to be fun, but it caused too much of a distraction.”
Sounds like a bunch of hogwash to me. Toledo, do the right thing. Honor your word, and if that tweet gets 500,000 retweets, change your mascot to Shrek. You don’t have to NOT be the Rockets anymore, either. Just be the Toledo Rockets, but have Shrek on the sidelines, y’know? That would be acceptable. Regardless, if you want to win over a new fan base, you’ll do what’s smart. If you care about overrated ideas like ‘integrity’ and ‘professionalism’ then you will what’s stupid. Time will tell.
Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD and #BeBetter. “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Alabama Crimson Tide football, the WWE, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley
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