Welcome to FTW Explains: a guide to catching up on and better understanding stuff going on in the world.
You may have seen some tweets about Burger King, specifically their brand in the UK, and something about International Women’s Day and a whole lot of anger. If you’re confused and want to keep track of what’s going on, that’s what we’re here to do.
Basically: this is a case of a brand tweeting a really awful thing to get everyone’s attention, by then following it up by revealing that it was part of a a big new project Burger King UK was working on. The lesson here? Brands: don’t do that.
OK, what the heck happened here?
This is a tweet from Burger King UK that just so happened to go out on March 8, which is International Women’s Day.
Women belong in the kitchen.
— Burger King (@BurgerKingUK) March 8, 2021
WHAT?! HOW DARE THEY?!
Right? Except that wasn’t the message, which continued as part of the thread revealing BK UK will be launching a scholarship program to “help female Burger King employees pursue their culinary dreams!”
If they want to, of course. Yet only 20% of chefs are women. We're on a mission to change the gender ratio in the restaurant industry by empowering female employees with the opportunity to pursue a culinary career. #IWD
— Burger King (@BurgerKingUK) March 8, 2021
We are proud to be launching a new scholarship programme which will help female Burger King employees pursue their culinary dreams!
— Burger King (@BurgerKingUK) March 8, 2021
Did they apologize?
Not really. There was a lot of doubling down:
We think it's weird that women make up only 20% of chefs in the UK restaurant industry. That's why we’ve created a scholarship to help give more of our female employees the chance to pursue a culinary career.
— Burger King (@BurgerKingUK) March 8, 2021
To bring attention to the huge lack of female representation in the restaurant industry? Yeah we think it's a good idea, that's why we’ve created a scholarship to help give more of our female employees the chance to pursue a culinary career.
— Burger King (@BurgerKingUK) March 8, 2021
Why would we delete a tweet that’s drawing attention to a huge lack of female representation in our industry, we thought you’d be on board with this as well? We've launched a scholarship to help give more of our female employees the chance to pursue a culinary career.
— Burger King (@BurgerKingUK) March 8, 2021
Our "thought process" is that women are shockingly underrepresented in our industry, and we thought it was time we did something about it. We've created a scholarship to give more of our female employees the chance to pursue a culinary career.
— Burger King (@BurgerKingUK) March 8, 2021
What was some of the other reaction?
A lot of tweets that look like this:
Burger King is on the naughty list for click-baiting us all with a rude tweet. pic.twitter.com/JrILY849R8
— Santa Decides (@SantaDecides) March 8, 2021
i don't know why i tweet in anything other than this format pic.twitter.com/MXQsDQTAjX
— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) March 8, 2021
The Only Way To Eat Burger King👎 pic.twitter.com/Dmji6lUbS4
— Official🐐(24-13)And(0-0) (@Officialj0nn) March 8, 2021
Was this a good idea?
No. No it was not.
[jwplayer n1MDNzLa-q2aasYxh]
[vertical-gallery id=1000517]