One horny Netflix tweet and we’ve officially hit peak Brand Twitter

By Jeff Beer

Netflix has built a pretty stellar reputation for how it manages itself on social media as a branded participant in the cultural banter around its shows. It’s done this largely by hiring TV and movie superfans to simply do their thing on behalf of the brand, talking like fans to other fans. And it’s worked! But (December 15, 2019) they reached out to a different demographic, their fellow brand social media managers.

Okay, here we have a brand taking an existing meme (things you can say during sex but also . . . at Thanksgiving, etc., etc.) and really just serving it up for every other brand to come running with a response. And oh, they did.

The worst (best?) two arguably came from Milwaukee Tool and Kettle Chips.

I mean, what to say? (Aside from “somebody call HR!”)

Brands tweeting at other brands has been happening for years. Total nerds will recall the great Old Spice/Taco Bell back and forth of 2012.

There’d be something strangely fun about seeing completely unrelated brands talking to each other if it weren’t just also completely absurd. It’s weird enough when Brand Twitter talks to people as if they’re people, but when it’s brands talking to other brands, the sheer thirst for our attention and approval is suffocating. Nothing could illustrate this more than this scramble of social media managers to find the best quip, and it arguably (finally) may have achieved peak Brand Twitter.

In the entirely forgettable 2007 film Feast of Love, Morgan Freeman’s character says, “Sometimes you don’t know you’ve crossed a line until you’re already on the other side. Of course, by then it’s too late.” For Brand Twitter, that happened at 10:24 pm ET, when a bag of chips tweeted about fisting.

 

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