Man, 2024 has been rough, strange, and elightening. I graduated from college and thought everything else would fall in line, a decent job, possibly a drivers license (yes, I’m almost 23 and I don’t have a license).

The job force for the 20s is humbling. Here I was–well promised getting a degree would get you a job. In reality, unless your in STEM or have other degrees that are needed for today’s workforce, good luck. I am aware of what I got myself into, I know my degree isn’t profitable unless I live in a state with massive publishing houses, or anywhere but West Virginia, I know what I’m paying for. 150 jobs later, and nothing. Which would be fine if I didn’t have 60k in student loan debt and almost 2k in credit card debt (curse covid). Why do beginner jobs want 3-5 years experience? Is my degree not enough? One thing I learned from this job market is expect the unexpceted. (seriously though, I’m not asking for much anymore, just a simple job writing, managing social media, hell, I’ll do math if needed). I hate begging but these same companies literally complain about no one wanting to work anymore. It’s insanity. I feel trapped in a never-ending-cycle of job applications, not hearing back, getting questioned by my parents about getting a job, and it repeats itself on the daily. I’m mentally exhausted.

I also can’t be the only one who’s slightly fearing 2025, given everything happening both in the US and outside of the US. May the gods be with us through it all.

This is a short post to end 2024, as I haven’t had the mental power to write anything else. I love writing but something about writing cover letters everyday, just to be ignored for months on end, drains you.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannaka, Bejewled Kwanza, and Happy New Years.

More Context About the Assignment:

This assignment was meant to be a way to come up with a way to make Fairmont States newspaper The Columns, more active on social media, and with the student body overall, as they lacked a proper social media manager at the time. We were also asked how to get the attention of the student body and staff outside of social media.

I think starting with getting the student’s attention through social media is a good first step for the newspaper when it comes to distribution. The students are the ones who read and share stuff about the newspaper, and they also are the ones who help write for it. Faculty and Staff can be on the back burner for the first part of the distribution plan. The best way to develop a voice for the newspaper is to have a student staff member of the paper run the account. Normally, you can tell who is running the account and if they are in the same age category as the audience they’re targeting. Students on average are between 18-23 and knowing this age demographic, the best platform to use for this launch is Instagram.

The content shared on Instagram can be the articles that the students are actively writing for the paper. I think a good first step would be doing a meet-the-staff post so students on campus can see who’s writing for them. Doing this about me section can help the students connect more with the student paper, and it could ease some student’s anxieties about the writers possibly not being actual students at the college reporting on issues. When it comes to sharing the articles, it is fairly simple to google photos that coincide with them or create photos to reuse using websites like Canva. You can share a small section of the article in the text part of the Instagram post and encourage people to check out the articles on the website. I think seeing snippets of articles could add to the shareability of the content itself. If you want people to share the post about the article, they need to be able to see some of it. Not everyone shares things based on only the title and sometimes require more to see if they want to share it with their friends who could be students at the college.

When it comes to targeting the staff of the college the Falcon flier is a good place to start (we can pretend that it is actually reliable) but using another social media platform to get the faculty and staff’s attention is a good idea. I’m thinking of Facebook considering I don’t know a lot of professors who have Instagram. You can post on Instagram and Facebook at the same time since a lot of their features are cross-platform, however, I think it’s a good idea to use a different approach on Facebook. Considering the faculty and staff are normally older, it may be a good idea to use a professional approach. Sharing the articles on Facebook, sharing posts about the writers, and sharing other information that may just pertain to staff can help attract them to the paper. Stating hey if you guys want something covered, please submit a pitch through our website so we can get it covered for you and also help engage staff and faculty. They will be more inclined to share something if what’s written is what they recommend.

Flyers with QR codes in all of the buildings around campus either linking to the website or to the social media pages help spread the news of the paper to everyone. Having mass emails sent out by the head of the department about the paper and what the paper does can also help get more writers involved which would mean more stories to post. There are TVs broadcasting things all over campus and it is one simple email away from getting them to share something about the columns on them. The Falcon Center, the Ruth-Anne Musick Library, and Turley would be great ones as they are frequently visited by students.

The launch was successful so what now? I think now it’s important to utilize the other features of Instagram that Facebook has in common, reels. Short-form video content brings in a wider audience and can even attract those not part of the campus community. Using reels to have the writers give a brief rundown of their articles or having a specific person run around campus and interview people on hot topics can help increase engagement on and off campus. Utilizing Facebook, you can begin to share the posts from the columns to the Fairmont Community page and allow the community to see what the students are covering. Want more engagement on the website? Host small giveaways of Falcon Dollars if people comment on the articles or on the Instagram and Facebook posts themselves. Just in case there are new writers on the team, a staff team Q&A video and ask for user-submitted questions for each of the staff members. You can make the videos long-form on YouTube or Instagram TV or utilize the stories feature so they can be shared on Facebook as well. One thing to remember is to push for people to submit story pitches either through the websites or you can use the Instagram questions feature to get some ideas. If you want to reach more students, reach out to the manager of the Fairmont State pages or the Humanities Department manager and see if you can work out small content-sharing deals. Having the columns shared on these platforms helps branch it out to students who possibly never knew it existed.

What happened:

In April 2023, Anheuser-Busch, the founding company of Bug Light partnered with Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender TikTok star. She was promoting their “Easy to Carry Contest” which had a grand prize of $15,000. They had also sent her a small case of beer with her face on it for her first anniversary of transitioning. Bud Light had also released a proud version of their cans which contributed to conservatives boycotting the brand. Conservatives were enraged about this promotion, and it had the most backlash with them since the “progressive” commercials from Gillette and Nike. They had called for a boycott of the Budweiser brand and even had celebrities such as Kid Rock mad (he shot cases of Bud Light with a rifle). Many conservatives were destroying cases of Bud Light in stores, buying them and running them over with trucks, shooting the cases of beer, and overall refusing to buy the product. John Carrillo, a conservative pundit, misgendered Dylan and called her a “grown man who dresses like little girls,” and others implied she’s a sexual predator. A go-to for conservatives against members of the LGBTQIA+ community.

They Threw Dylan to the Wolves (Conservatives):

They did nothing to protect Dylan from their attacks and their response (above) does not address all of the hate and death threats Dylan was receiving from Conservatives. They made no response to Dylan getting all of the hate and as they said themselves, “We never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people.” My issue with this statement is the fact that they knew their base was widely conservative and hated LGBTQ+ people. They knew this and should’ve seen this backlash happening before it happened. They needed to be more prepared when dealing with this situation considering it took them a while to respond. They only responded because they were losing sales on a beer that tasted disgusting. They didn’t issue anything telling people to stop harassing and sending threats to Dylan which sat wrong with a lot of LGBTQ+ Orgs. and the members of the community. They also placed two of their marketing executives on leave because of the backlash and the LGBTQ+ community was not happy about it. The Human Rights Organization told the company that it would lose its perfect Corporate Equality Index score. This prompted the company to make a $200,000 donation to the Communities of Color Initiative which is under the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce. This is the bare minimum for the mental and potentially physical harm they caused to Dylan for not sticking up for her and issuing a terrible response.

The Evaluation of Budlight:

They handled this situation terribly and there are many things they could’ve done. We will start with the first thing being sticking up for Dylan when your entire customer base starts sending her death threats. Dylan was the most affected out of all of this considering she was sent death threats and terrible messages from them. The community itself was affected because the company not doing anything showed conservatives they could continually bully and harass them without repercussions. The crisis is severe for them only because they lost a lot of revenue because of the tantrum their main customer base threw. Honestly, why they decided to branch out with Dylan for this promotion is beyond me and it does sound like they’re just wanting brownie points with LGBTQ+ people. They may not have been aware of how bad the crisis would be, but they knew it would get them customers somewhere. The brand not only lost credibility with its customer base but a lot of gay bars have dropped them because of their lack of response. They were seen as an ally but lost it when they let their customers send death threats and threw Dylan out like a rag.

How They Should’ve Responded (No, Ukuleles are not present.):

Respond at least 24 hours after the backlash as the quicker the response, the better the public may take it.

One: Apologize for upsetting your fan base and also tell them to leave Dylan alone. They were the ones who contacted her for the promotion and they certainly knew what they were getting into.

Two: Apologize to Dylan directly as they left her alone without support. Apologize for allowing their customer base to send her death threats. She had left the internet for a short amount of time and Budlight did nothing.

Three: Say you’re committed to being inclusive and supportive of everyone. Don’t cave because of losing money from a conservative temper tantrum.

Posting the response on Twitter would most likely be their best bet as it’s where a lot of people go. The apology could look something like below. I do think it would be better if the CEO posted it directly and didn’t use “we.” Yes, the company did have Dylan do this promotion, but the CEO is the person behind the company and therefore should be the one apologizing and reaching out to Dylan privately. If they want to make a statement in video format as well, they can always contact a news channel, or post it on their website and share it on Twitter. They should and will not include any instruments in this apology. A phone call to Dylan should also be done to ensure that she’s mentally okay, the CEO or someone else in a higher position should do this. The CEO should be the one who apologizes to Dylan privately and publicly. I think it’s important for the CEO to sound like he genuinely means it and it means formal writing seen from PR. (Do not let PR write this apology, please.)

A Better Apology Sample:

As the CEO of the company, it is my responsibility to release this statement regarding what’s happened recently to one of our promoters, Dylan Mulvaney. I want to take accountability and apologize directly to Dylan. I am sorry for leaving you to defend yourself against the customer base of my company. I didn’t know how divisive this issue was and I do full-heartedly apologize for allowing the consumers to send, comment, and harass you.

To our customers, I am sorry for upsetting you with who is promoting our products. I do want to say that I and the company are committed to being inclusive to everyone. I don’t believe in discriminating against someone because they are different. Everyone can enjoy and drink a beer and it doesn’t have to be political. I ask you all to stop harassing Dylan and to continue enjoying your beer. If you don’t want to buy it then I’m sure the company will not miss your money.

I am sorry for upsetting everyone. I am sorry for subjecting Dylan to all of the harassment. I would never wish that on anyone, and I have learned from my mistakes. I will be reaching out to Dylan privately to apologize. Our beer is for everyone, and I will always stand by that.

Would this Apology Do Well?

Looking at the comments, retweets, quote tweets, and views of the post can help determine if this does well. I do think the majority of the comments will probably read like a toddler commented on them or look like: “woke trash,” “go woke, go broke,” and “I will never buy your beer again.” I will also leave out the cuss words because I have read comments that involve them, and I don’t feel like typing them. Overall, the response probably will be what everyone expects from their main consumer base.

I think they would still be continuing to boycott the company had they posted an apology similar to mine. I do think this would be appreciated by their general consumers who don’t care about who they partner with. The main person I think this would go over well with is Dylan, and I think she’d appreciate the CEO reaching out and apologizing. I would love to think that this post would go over well with the LGBTQ+ Community as a whole but there will always be skeptical people. We call their inclusivity “rainbow capitalism” they do it for money and nothing else. I do think a lot of the community would see the apology as a good thing, but I think they already tarnished their reputation by allowing the harassment to continue for more than a day.