SeaWorld Wants To Hear Your Thoughts — Unless You're A Critic
From late 2009 through early 2010, SeaWorld's Facebook posts were mostly pictures of cute animals and celebrities such as this Daytona 500 champ playing tug-of-war with a caged tiger. Then, on February 24, 2010, the tone of SeaWorld's Facebook page changed when Tilikum, the legendary SeaWorld orca, killed his trainer, Dawn Brancheau.
Three years later, "Blackfish" premiered, and SeaWorld has been scrambling for the past two years to save its image: It was just one month ago that the troubled company released the latest installment in its save-face campaign.
But this campaign has been around long before "Blackfish." In fact, on the very night of Brancheau's tragic death, SeaWorld used its Facebook page to express mourning, issue a statement from its president and announce that the park would operate on the next day with regularly scheduled business hours. That last post was the one that inspired criticism from Facebook users. One commenter posted: "It aint the whales fault, it should not be cooped up in a CELL."
It didn't take long for SeaWorld to realize that its Facebook page had the potential to turn this tragedy into fodder for public debate about orca captivity.
SeaWorld posted a reminder to its critics that it reserved the right to delete posts that were in "poor taste." The post reads:
The post didn't stop the people from calling out SeaWorld for mistreating the orcas.
After one night of uncensored comments on its Facebook page, SeaWorld took greater measures to prevent public debate.
Wanting to avoid another night of criticism against the park's captivity programs, SeaWorld announced that it would shut down its Facebook wall, the section for comments from the public.
Then it announced the same action the next night.
The next day, SeaWorld announced a third night of silence.
From February 28 to March 2, SeaWorld's Facebook history is blank.
It took only a week after Brancheau's tragic death for SeaWorld's PR team to organize a concerted effort to refocus the park's image.
Out of the 48 posts on SeaWorld's Facebook page between March 3 and April 10, a clear divide in numbers reveals the story that SeaWorld wanted to tell about itself after the tragedy.
- 16 posts on SeaWorld's conservation efforts
- 15 vaguely positive posts about SeaWorld (new attractions, celebrities and stuff like this)
- 10 posts promoting TV appearances
- 4 posts about releasing animals back into the wild, including its first non-Tilikum related post after the tragic murder
- 3 posts about Tilikum or Dawn
Obviously SeaWorld would have hesitated to post too many stories about releasing animals back into the wild. The money is in the captive animals, and if all the animals were eventually released into the wild, what "attractions" would be left at the park?
Why did SeaWorld only write three posts about Tilikum and Dawn during this time? The park wanted to shift the conversation from tragedy to anything else. The debates about what to do with this captive animal and the inherent problem with captivity would most likely not end in SeaWorld's favor. Rather than participating in the debate, SeaWorld controlled the 2010 Facebook debates by silencing them.
SeaWorld silences public debate.
SeaWorld's efforts to dodge criticism didn't stop in April 2010. They continued after the release of "Blackfish," and they continue today.
The PR team at SeaWorld might believe that the Facebook page is successful: Today it still posts the same type of promotional poppycock that it did five years ago. Here's a post from Friday with another NASCAR driver posing with an animal.
Public awareness about the trauma experienced by orcas in captivity is on the rise. Unfortunately for SeaWorld and amusement parks like it, an informed public threatens their revenue and very existence. When tragedy strikes, SeaWorld does its best to steer the conversation where it wants, and when the conversation gets out of control, SeaWorld will silence it.