How Twitterers celebrated the great Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram shutdown of 2021

By Joe Berkowitz

It was already a brutal moment for Facebook. The social media goliath had just capped off a week of negative press around its halted Instagram Kids project with a bombshell 60 Minutes interview, in which a whistleblower detailed how the company has misled the public about its efforts to curb misinformation and hate speech.

In timing that may or may not be coincidental, however, the situation further deteriorated on Monday morning when Facebook and its other platforms, WhatsApp and Instagram, suffered their worst outages in recent memory.

Adding insult to injury for the troubled juggernaut, Facebook’s misfortune has been a bonanza for other social media companies, namely Twitter, which has been rife with memes about the mishap.

Some of the memes gleefully highlight Mark Zuckerberg’s personal misfortune and extra full plate at the moment.

Other memes depict the avalanche of Facebook users suddenly deluging Twitter due to a lack of other options.

Several Twitterers used the most popular TV show in the world at the moment, Netflix’s Squid Game, to make this point, in ways that will be too complicated to explain for anyone who has not already watched Squid Game.

Even Dolly Parton got in on the action, highlighting Facebook’s misfortunes on its competitor’s turf.

Of course, Twitter itself had to weigh in, leading to a truly bizarre collision of social media brands, and brands in general, gleefully commemorating the occasion together.

And, of course, finally, there were plenty of memes about how much Twitter was enjoying itself on this particular day.

The lesson here is, whether you’re just an average worker or the head of a major social media company, always strive to comport yourself in such a way that others will not turn the worst day of your career into a makeshift national holiday.

Fast Company , Read Full Story

(53)