Posting photos of what seem to be little boys staring at tits notwithstanding, WPLG’s latest trolling and whoring for Local10.com page views has backfired in a big way. In their latest attempt at getting the Facebook followers they’ve amassed from bribes iPad and trip giveaways to visit their website, Local10 managed to offend one of the biggest and most vocal fan communities in the world – Star Wars fans.
It started several days ago when WPLG posted a picture slide show from a recent Star Wars convention in Orlando on its website featuring captions under each photo that made fun of convention attendees, their attire and even their age! On Facebook, the station teased the slide show with a sarcastic post featuring a picture of half-clothed overweight guy and a woman near him wearing a skimpy outfit and a Stormtrooper mask.
But it gets worse.
Amazingly (or stupidly) the station re-posed the slideshow yesterday again, with the original teaser photo, as outraged Star Wars fans were already contacting the station and voicing their displeasure about it both via email and with Facebook comments. According to several blogs, WPLG tried to placate everyone by editing the original captions to make them less controversial. When that didn’t work WPLG deleted the pictures from its website along with the original Facebook post while giving a half-assed non-apology apology:
“GOOD NEWS (or BAD NEWS… depending on where you sided). The infamous STAR WARS slideshow has been taken down.
For those offended (and let us know), sorry.
For those who enjoyed it (and let us know), sorry.
Remember… the force will be with you… always.”
What’s more, it seems they are also actively deleting negative comments left on their Facebook page.
Maybe now they will finally get the 60,000 Facebook followers they’ve been begging for since May?
Yeahhhhh if you could just post the news, Local 10, that’d be great thanks.
The reaction is really dumb. Satire hello? But at the same time WPLG needs to get off 4Chan a bit and report the news..
If you can’t cover news then cover unimportant features, then make your company look foolish by making fun of all those viewers. Yeah, that’s the way to get more people to watch!
Maybe if they figured out they were supposed to give people real news instead of pablum produced by kids with no experience they might have a fighting chance. But that’s hoping for too much.