EA's marketing department has rapidly ended a social media campaign called #JustWW1Things after people pointed out it turning World War 1 into a meme is a tad insensitive.
Aaaand Battlefield is deleting its tweets. SHUT IT DOWN pic.twitter.com/QNpAP1zaKW
— Alex Hern (@alexhern) October 31, 2016
People on social media quickly pointed out that trying to turn World War One into light-hearted memes was insensitive, it is after all a conflict in which over 17 million people died and a further 20 million were wounded.
The most egregious tweet was this one featuring soldiers being torched alive:
Deleted now, but I'm sure they'll make an appearance in the lectures I'm working on. pic.twitter.com/7nVVoD2BgL
— Holly Nielsen (@nielsen_holly) October 31, 2016
While EA has now deleted the tweets that were part of the campaign, the hashtag lives on. Though, most of the tweets at the moment are pointing to the horror of the conflict:
#JustWW1Things pic.twitter.com/agtVHFKTne
— Philip Bak (@niinegames) October 31, 2016
When your squad is on point, having a gas. #justWWIthings pic.twitter.com/ZUVXIdCEHm
— Adam Smith (@noneconomical) October 31, 2016
#justWWIthings pic.twitter.com/UrPwViP9Zc
— Chris Thursten (@CThursten) October 31, 2016
Hopefully other developers will look at this and learn from EA's mistake.
shares