It went viral a while ago: the twitter account that doesn't actually belong to the British Petroleum PR department. @BPGlobalPR was very obviously a joke feed attacking BP for their amazing incompetence and tone-deafness in the course of the horrific Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Now the man who started it all gives himself a new nom de guerre, Leroy Stick, and tells us a story.
Blog Post at Street Giant, hat tip to Balloon Juice.
Mr. Stick's explanation is simple and straight foward:
...If someone is terrorizing your neighborhood, sometimes it’s alright to grab a stick and take a swing. Social media, and in this particular case Twitter, has given average people like me the ability to use and invent all sorts of brand new sticks.
Basically, he's pissed off and not going to take it anymore. Which, at this point, anybody should be able to relate to. To use his own metaphor, BP is Leroy, and he's the stick, the Leroy stick, being used to beat them. If you want to know the true origins of that metaphor, read his blog post at Street Giant, linked above.
Also, he is carefully differentiating himself from BP, despite the moniker of his twitter account. For example:
BP seems to only care about maintaining their image so they can keep making money, two things we have blatantly avoided. I don’t have an image and I’m not making any money AT ALL for myself. Every penny we make from the t-shirts goes to the Gulf Restoration Network. Just a few hours ago, we made our first official $10,000 donation to healthygulf.org from the money we’ve made selling free “bp cares” t-shirts in one week.
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When it comes to disasters like BP's massive oil spill, getting numb is a real danger. It gets to the point where there has been so much bad news for so long that people start feeling resigned or helpless. And this is why I am so grateful for Mr. Stick and his fake PR operation. In order to keep the outrage going, you need a change of mood every now and then. And, as Mr. Stick points out:
...Sometimes laughing at it feels better than getting angry or depressed over it. At the very least, it’s a welcome break from that routine.
Keep informed. Keep outraged. But don't forget to enjoy yourself.