There are a lot of people on Twitter and Facebook that love a great, interactive social media campaign, especially if it means that they can get their photos shared for others to see. In theory, most large scale campaigns are intended to be both fun for consumers and followers while beneficial for the company behind it, mainly so it can make a ton of money and reap in the spoils of economic success (or at least the general love and respect of the poor, unwashed masses). But it seems like more often than not, those kind-hearted campaigns fall into the hands of Internet no-gooders and, well, it gets pretty ugly.
Case in point, the New York Police Department launched a #MyNYPD Twitter campaign today, inviting followers and New Yorkers to share their photos with random police officers, and the best of them all would eventually be shared on the NYPD’s Facebook page for everyone to like and comment on. Can you guess how #MyNYPD turned out? Yeah, it wasn’t very successful at all. Somewhere, there’s a social media manager trying to convince his boss that he “did not see this coming.”
It started with a pretty harmless idea and a message of peace and unity between New Yorkers and the boys in blue.
Some of the responses were in good spirits, like this one that was Tweeted early on…
And from there things got pretty ugly. Okay, let’s just say that things got really ugly.
A lot of the photos being widely RT’d and Fav’d are old and come from either widely-publicized cases or Occupy Wall Street. Hell, a bunch of people keep Tweeting the photo of the pepper spray cop from UC-Davis like nobody realizes the difference. But that just reminds Johnny Marketing Department that it’s very easy to Google an image like this…
Meanwhile, on the subway…
That seems to be a much safer mode of travel for an officer, what with all of the human speed bumps getting in this guy’s way.
Others chimed in with an assortment of images that revealed questionable arrest tactics and alleged brutality, some even claiming to be the targets.
But again, not all of the photos included in the #MyNYPD campaign were bad. Especially not for this guy.