Elle Magazine’s Kim and Kanye stunt backfires spectacularly
OH DEAR. When Elle Magazine announced that Kim Kardashian and Kanye West had split up, they probably didn’t expect this brutal reaction.
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US MAGAZINE Elle is facing a fierce social media backlash after tweeting out a non-existent story announcing that Kim Kardashian and Kanye West have broken up.
The mag issued a tweet stating that “Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are splitting up,” complete with a picture of the couple, shocked emojis and a link — presumably, to read the full story.
Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are splitting up 😱💔 https://t.co/epwKG7aSBg pic.twitter.com/u7qqojWVlR
— ELLE Magazine (US) (@ELLEmagazine) October 18, 2018
Once interested readers click on the link, they are instead taken to a website to register to vote ahead of the US midterm elections on November 6.
Get it? “We tricked you into clicking using your interest in celebrities, now here’s something more worthy we know you never would’ve clicked on.”
The stunt — the very definition of the oft-misused term ‘clickbait’ — seemed to suggest Elle has a pretty dim view of its largely female readership. The reaction online was swift and brutal:
This is trash nonsense. Who do you think you are reaching with this? Guess what? One can be civic minded and interested in celebrity gossip. Do better.
— roxane gay (@rgay) October 18, 2018
The desperation jumped out
— Ira (@ira) October 18, 2018
Because we’re already smart enough to participate in it, and don’t need a pandering click-bait headline to “trick†us into it.
— AC Slayer 🔪🔪🔪 (@amber_lcarter) October 18, 2018
This is condescending. People can care about more than one thing at once!
— Erin Strecker (@ErinStrecker) October 18, 2018
Elle Magazine is using some serious click bait to get their readers to register to vote. Don’t play with us like that, Elle. Not cool. #TheMorningToast pic.twitter.com/7BoSBzHwmJ
— The Morning Toast (@themorningtoast) October 18, 2018
We didn’t think there was a wrong way to encourage people to vote, but ELLE Magazine found ithttps://t.co/OyoDouuWbi pic.twitter.com/nLL5wZgoaW
— The Mary Sue (@TheMarySue) October 18, 2018
Some pointed out that, in an era of paranoia about “fake news”, deliberately misleading your readership about anything is not a good move:
It’s not clever - its taking advantage of the situation. There are smarter ways to do it without lying in a climate where trust in media is crazy low
— bubba atkinson (@BubbaAtkinson) October 18, 2018
Okay. That's not ethical or appropriate. I'm all for get out the vote efforts, but this is misleading and fuels the "fake news" fire...
— ðŸ–Just Jake🤚 (@JustJake_91) October 18, 2018
And it’s not even an original stunt: Elle tweeted it six days after writer Ashlee Marie Preston had done the same thing, announcing a Kim and Kanye divorce with a link to vote. Her tweet has been retweeted more than 60,000 times:
Welp...it’s official...Kim Kardashian finally decided to divorce Kanye West... https://t.co/C2p25mxWJO
— Ashlee Marie Preston (@AshleeMPreston) October 12, 2018
Elle have now apologised for the “bad joke” …
We made a bad joke. Our passion for voter registration clouded our judgement and we are sincerely sorry. https://t.co/cYGGrpfBCz
— ELLE Magazine (US) (@ELLEmagazine) October 18, 2018
… and as far as we know, Kim and Kanye are still together.
Originally published as Elle Magazine’s Kim and Kanye stunt backfires spectacularly