Disney Thread Goes Viral For Reasons They Didn’t Expect, They Make It Worse By Deleting It

Disney isn't the first big company to experience such a massive social media fail. Just like many celebrities, other big brands have posted problematic content on their social media platforms before this as well. 

For example, in 2021, Burger King announced a cooking scholarship for female employees with a tweet that read, "Women belong in the kitchen," receiving enormous backlash. Although they followed up with "If they want to, of course," and statistics about how only 20% of chefs are women, the damage was done.

The engagement of the original tweet was 527% higher than that of the one announcing the scholarship. People found their marketing strategy to be in very poor taste, sexist, and pretty tone-deaf to be posted on International Women's Day. 

Just like Disney did in this case, Burger King also deleted their offensive tweet. But, unlike Disney, they apologized and admitted that the post was made in poor taste. "We hear you. We got our initial tweet wrong and we're sorry," the brand wrote in the post. 

"Our aim was to draw attention to the fact that only 20% of professional chefs in UK kitchens are women and to help change that by awarding culinary scholarships. We will do better next time."

As of today, Disney has not addressed the deleted thread or the backlash. However, the comments under their other posts on Threads have been usurped by people posting the same quotes, GIFs, and screenshots from the previous thread.

Even now that the thread has been deleted, people can still go to Disney's Threads account and find people addressing the situation. The top comments with over two thousand "likes" are all in the vein of continuing the discussion. "Never dirty delete," user @thatladyfromrichmond wrote, accompanied by a GIF from the 1998 Mulan. "Shame on you, Disney. You know better, because you taught us better," another user, @artemislynne, wrote.

Social marketing specialists know that it's not all just about relatable content or the wording of a message. Context and timing matter, too. Even the most innocent post can sometimes trigger emotional responses from people. Remember the time Elmo asked everybody on Twitter how they were doing and people started trauma dumping on the poor guy?

That refers to an incident in 2024 when the "Sesame Street" character account on Twitter asked its followers: "Elmo is just checking in! How is everybody doing?" And the responses, just like in this case, were far from what Elmo expected. "Oh Elmo, sweetheart, we are not doing well," one user wrote. Another added: "Honestly, Elmo, I need a hug."

And how did the people who run Elmo's account respond? They didn't delete the tweet, but followed up with a heartfelt reminder that folks should take care of their mental health. "Wow! Elmo is glad he asked! Elmo learned that it is important to ask a friend how they are doing. Elmo will check in again soon, friends! Elmo loves you. #EmotionalWellBeing."

The official Sesame Street account also addressed the viral moment: "Thank you, @Elmo, for checking in with a reminder for us to pause and take a mindful moment to focus on how we're feeling." They also directed people to mental well-being resources.

Social media marketing experts claim that it's important to address controversies as quickly as possible. "When a post causes a backlash, be transparent about your mistake," director of strategy at ICUC, a global social media and online community management agency, Kevin Gonsalves, recommends.

"A simple 'We messed up, and we're sorry' message goes a long way," Gonsalves goes on. "Making your apology direct and acknowledging specific mistakes is important to rebuilding trust with your followers."

That may be especially true when we're talking about giants like Disney. Its movies taught us respect, kindness, and what justice really is. One user, @typicalannamari, drove this point home with their tweet: "What if you honoured the kids you raised and didn't delete posts that held you accountable?" Perhaps next time, Disney will read the room and acknowledge that the current state of the world has many folks seriously worried.