Pop culture is extremely prominent within our society, and it is so easy to consume, especially with everything being so accessible. The online world makes it very difficult for you to erase your online history, cancel culture is ruthless. A career that took ten years to build can be over in ten seconds from a comment, video, or picture.
American rapper Jonathan Lyndale Kirk, professionally known as DaBaby experienced major backlash from making offensive uneducated comments on HIV Aids, whilst performing on stage at a festival last year.
You’re probably wondering what DaBaby said and how serious was it? To put in short, DaBaby said to his audience to “put [their] cell phone light up", apart from those who were HIV-positive or were gay men who had sex in car parks. He also went on to say that ‘HIV’ will ‘make you die in two or three weeks.’
Rightfully so people were angry. DaBaby, unprovoked decided to spread misinformation surrounding the disease as well as hate.
As a PR practitioner this would be a nightmare. Your job is to enhance and protect your client’s reputation and prepare them for all sorts of public interaction. As expected, he received major backlash from people all over social media. However, he preceded to make matters worse by trying to defend his comments and using police brutality to deflect from what he had previously tweeted. Instead of using twitter as an opportunity to express his regrets and redeem himself, he continued to undermine the severity if his comments by adding:
“What I do at the live show is for the audience at the live show. It would never translate correctly to someone looking a little five/six second clip."
After further scrutiny and pressure from the internet and his industry peers, DaBaby finally folded and released an apology on twitter, which in itself can be seen as problematic. He said, ‘anybody who done ever been [affected] by AIDS/HIV y'all got the right to be upset,’ and ended the tweet by addressing the LGBTQ+ community saying "I ain't trippin on y'all, do you. y'all business is y'all business."
He later lost big sponsorships deals because of his actions and was dropped as a headline from other music festivals.
Do I think things could have been handled differently?
Yes, I do! His press team were not proactive or reactive. As soon as he was saying the offensive comments on the stage someone should have turned off his microphone. He is a renowned concert with thousands of people capturing what he is saying, or someone could have radioed him in his ear.
I believe that a media statement should have been released immediately and he should have been informed as to why what he said was controversial. His team should have discouraged him from posting anything on the internet. Further to my last point, the tone of the apology was way to informal and seemed as though he was making a joke out of the situation. It appears it was comical to him, and if I thought that I know others did to.
Most importantly, I think he never stood a chance because if he had the right media training, he would have known not to have shared those opinions or apologised straight away. To help his public image moving forward he should show that he has learnt from his mistakes by supporting people who suffer with Aids and work on providing awareness. It is pride month at the moment, and he could talk about what he has learned since the time has elapsed from the incident, or focus on bringing a positive change to the community he affected.
American rapper Jonathan Lyndale Kirk, professionally known as DaBaby experienced major backlash from making offensive uneducated comments on HIV Aids, whilst performing on stage at a festival last year.
You’re probably wondering what DaBaby said and how serious was it? To put in short, DaBaby said to his audience to “put [their] cell phone light up", apart from those who were HIV-positive or were gay men who had sex in car parks. He also went on to say that ‘HIV’ will ‘make you die in two or three weeks.’
Rightfully so people were angry. DaBaby, unprovoked decided to spread misinformation surrounding the disease as well as hate.
“What I do at the live show is for the audience at the live show. It would never translate correctly to someone looking a little five/six second clip."
After further scrutiny and pressure from the internet and his industry peers, DaBaby finally folded and released an apology on twitter, which in itself can be seen as problematic. He said, ‘anybody who done ever been [affected] by AIDS/HIV y'all got the right to be upset,’ and ended the tweet by addressing the LGBTQ+ community saying "I ain't trippin on y'all, do you. y'all business is y'all business."
Do I think things could have been handled differently?
Yes, I do! His press team were not proactive or reactive. As soon as he was saying the offensive comments on the stage someone should have turned off his microphone. He is a renowned concert with thousands of people capturing what he is saying, or someone could have radioed him in his ear.
I believe that a media statement should have been released immediately and he should have been informed as to why what he said was controversial. His team should have discouraged him from posting anything on the internet. Further to my last point, the tone of the apology was way to informal and seemed as though he was making a joke out of the situation. It appears it was comical to him, and if I thought that I know others did to.
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