A lot happened in 2023! Let’s take a look at some of the biggest stories of the year through an online reputation perspective.
Twitter/Elon Musk/X
It’s hard to keep track of all of the Elon Musk stories and this should come as no surprise as everything he says and does makes news.
Throw in all of the Twitter/X controversies on top of this and it’s a never ending story.
Musk got into hot water when it came to hate speech, specifically anti-semitic content which led many advertisers to flee.
The question remains, what sort of community is Twitter? Does the toxicity and bots make it completely unusable? When there are so many other platforms, why stay there? It has the advantage that it’s already one of the biggest social media networks in the world but there’s so much baggage that comes with it. Everytime you enter the twitterverse you do so at your own risk which is a shame because when there are brilliant, clever, funny tweets there is nothing better.
Threads
An offshoot of Twitter’s controversies was the creation of Threads, a Twitter like platform created by Mark Zuckerberg. Piggybacking off Instagram, there was a huge bounce at the start when everyone signed up to see what it was about. Once they found out, many exited the building.
Does it have the potential to join the likes of Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and TikTok at the social media grown-ups table? That remains to be seen.
AI
One of the stories of the year is AI. Who really wants to leap headfirst into an AI where humans are controlled by their AI overlords. I’ve already seen the movie and it’s not a world I want to live in. Having AI doing some menial tasks is great but do we really want them being creative?
Disney
Speaking of movies, for a brand who’s used to shining bright, it was a lackluster year for Disney
The Little Mermaid was a disaster from start to finish and they don’t appear to have learned their lesson with Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs mired in controversy. They ruined a much beloved franchise as the new Indiana Jones movie crashed and burned. Bob Iger returned to clean up the mess, some of which he may have caused. This company which used to represent the best in cutting edge in entertainment now represents the worst in Hollywood- sequels and reboots that no one asked for and even fewer want to go see.
George Santos
On November 8, 2022 George Santos was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives to represent New York’s 3rd district. Before he was sworn into office on January 3, 2023, there were already allegations and suspicions of his background
Wasn’t just lies about his background, but wire fraud, money laundering, taking unemployment benefits for which he wasn’t eligible. Make no mistake, no one is going to be in two minds when googling him. In December 2023 he was thrown out of congress but unfortunately, this may not be the last we hear from him.
Bud Light
It may have been a good idea at the time to hire transgender Dylan Mulvaney to be the face of a marketing campaign. Instead it was one of the biggest fiascos in American corporate history. What started off as a boycott of Bud Light evolved into something much bigger and Bud Light became the avatar for it all.
Travis Kelce
The football public knew who Travis Kelce was but this was nothing compared to receiving the adulation of the Swifties. Being the + one of Taylor Swift made him one of the most famous people in the world and his online reputation soared as a result. He gained over a million instagram followers and visits to his Wikipedia page shot up
Ivy League
The Ivy League used to be a brand synonymous with the brightest and the best. People from all over the world dreamed about learning there. That all went down the drain following the Hamas Attacks on Israel. Not only were there the protests claiming that the attacks were vindicated and Israel’s fault, but in front of a congressional hearing, the Presidents of Harvard, Penn and MIT couldn’t condemn hate speech against Jews. It was a shameful performance and one that dragged the universities reputations through the mud.
Sam Blankman Fried
The darling of the crypto world and every other world because he threw around money like it was going out of fashion (on point for a crypto brand) Blankman Fried went down in a heap of flames. His Q-tip hairstyle and avant garde dress sense aren’t as edgy now that he was found guilty on seven counts of fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering.
He joins the likes of Bernard Madoff and Charles Ponzi in becoming a byword for greed, corruption and fraud.
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