Yes, apparently Don Lemon is moonlighting as Pabst Blue Ribbon’s social media flack. This enthusiastically vulgar tweet, an instant classic, appeared this morning because of only one of a few reasons: the low-level schmuck who has the job of tweeting out stuff for the maker of this long-reviled beer couldn’t take it any more and snapped like a dry twig in the wind; he or she picked a highly unethical way to quit after making up and thinking, “Oh god, what am I doing with my life?”; or this was a well planned, brilliant way to get everyone talking about a beer that few thought was still being brewed.
Regardless, its not the kind of thing any company should inflict on social media users, even those who favor Twitter, the bottom of the barrel.
Alas, the that remains on Twitter is this sad remnant of what was…
Ethics Alarms 
Clever gay guy outreach? An unrepresented group in the PBR drinker demographic?
Based upon the occasional X-rated commentary that I’m subjected to from my stepdaughter, this is apparently something that some young heterosexual couples engage in. I consider myself open-minded about such things, but I can’t see the attraction to this activity from either end, so to speak.
Yikes.
AdAge – one of the two major publications focusing on advertising and branding – did a story on this earlier today. It seems likely that the account was either hacked or somehow came under the control of a disgruntled employee.
A fun anecdote: probably ten years ago, Chrysler Motors sent a tweet saying “I find it hard to believe that Detroit is known as the Motor City when nobody here knows how to fucking drive.”
The backstory: Chrysler had outsourced its social posts to an agency; the actual transmission of pre-approved posts were assigned to a low-level staffer; that staffer showed up to work and thought he was tweeting from his own account when in fact he was tweeting from Chrysler’s.
Said staffer didn’t last the morning. The agency didn’t last two days – both sound decisions, IMO.
I’ll go along with it being an unethical tweet, only insofar as those who tweet have a responsibility to ensure reasonable levels of security in messaging, particularly if the actual legwork is delegated to others. For that, Pabst clearly screwed up, and as you’ve previously noted incompetence is at least in some regards unethical. I wouldn’t argue it goes much beyond that, however.
It IS pretty funny, though.
Kurt Vonnegut evidently went to work at Sports Illustrated. His first morning there, he was assigned to write a story about a racehorse that had jumped over the rail during the course of a thoroughbred horserace. Vonnegut steamed all morning and then finally, prior to leaving for lunch (and never returning to SI), wrote. “The horse jumped over the fucking fence.”* I suppose in this day and age, no editor would have objected to running the “story.”
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* My very favorite college English professor, an American Lit specialist and not a Vonnegut fan, upon hearing the story commented, “Best sentence Vonnegut ever wrote.”
More on this story. And it would appear someone will be seeking new employment:
https://adage.com/article/marketing-news-strategy/pabst-says-x-rated-tweets-came-employee/2390761
I think it’s nice that they’re suggesting a suitable pairing for PBR.
PBR was always very affordable, and the branding and trade dress is absolutely impeccable. Always has been. Always will be. Iconic. Frankly, I’m amazed it’s still brewed and consumed.
This long-reviled beer has gained a certain cache and sells for $12 to $20 at trendy bars. Who knew?
Really? Amazing.
It’s been a beer-of-choice among the man-bun set for a decade or more.
Wow. LastI checked, it was no better than National Bohemian, Narragansett or Schlitz, meaning “Yecchh.”
Try Glueck sometime. And as for PBR… been the snowboarder beer of choice at afternoon tailgates for a long time.
PBR seems to be offering a choice between two different flavors. I’m hard pressed to decide which may be worse.