If you’ve seen any kind of social media posts by companies in the past few years, you may have noticed a trend happening. This latest stunt, pulled by big corporations, is to try and appeal to their consumer base by posting silly/funny things on their social networking sites. This is likely being done in an attempt to break down societal barriers between companies and their customers to try and connect with them in a more meaningful way. This ‘meaningful’ way is likely a ploy to sell their product faster, by appearing to be in touch with consumers, especially a younger audience. We first started seeing this around 2017, when Wendy’s came into the spotlight for roasting people and their competitor McDonald’s on Twitter. When Wendy’s, a giant corporation, started acting in an unprofessional manner to consumers and competitors in the social media medium, it kickstarted a movement that has led some of the largest companies to become peddlers of sarcastic comments and emojis in an effort to appeal to a younger and more diverse audience.
Of course, this isn’t to say that all companies have started a sillier online presence, but a substantial amount has, mostly by companies that have a larger demographic of younger people viewing their product. One of the most significant users of this modern form of semiotics is the streaming company Netflix. What Netflix does is interesting, their official Instagram page is essentially a page for memes almost exclusively about their original programming. They’ll take a still from one of their library’s vast titles; likely a new release, add a caption and apply it to one of their other titles. For example, their caption was the ‘cowboy hat emoji’ and they posted stills from their library of various characters wearing cowboy hats. And the general response to these posts has been positive. People will respond with their own cowboy hats and many times pleas with Netflix to bring back their favorite show that was given the ax.
However, how real people do social media compared to billion-dollar companies is very different. Most of the time, we know when we’re being sold to and Netflix’s flashy Instagram page is no exception. Let’s take a look at a real person’s Insta page, mine. In mine, you won’t see lots of emojis, and there’s a reason for that. I don’t care for them in my social media posts, they seem extra, and I feel the picture and caption is adequate. However, others comment emojis on my posts. When I post a picture of the food that I made, some of my friends will comment with their approval, with a red ‘heart’ emoji for good measure.
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