Royal Academy social media

[bastardmonkfisher]

Can someone who is more expert in social media help me? Royal Academy social media team seem to have been heavily instrumental in the Jess de Wahl travesty. I suppose the shop started the whole debacle but the social media team branded Jess a bigot.

But the head of their social media Adam Koszary has today tweeted one comment: 'google, define performative'.

What does this mean? Does he think that the furore was performative on the part of women defending Jess? Or is he saying that he doesn't approve of the apology that the RA tweeted (but I note have not put on their Instagram).

I guess it's his personal account so maybe not related to the work stuff. But it irks me that it feels like a dismissive comment on the Jess de Wahl issue.

Maybe I need to step away from social media

grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/ra-apologises-to-jess-dewahls-their

I hope he does get in trouble over that tweet because it makes me doubt the Royal Academy of Art's self professed 'commitment to free speech' as it stands and makes me feel more like they have an 'allergy to bad PR over poor decisions instead' rather than actually seeing how wrong their actions were.

Compare and contrast. Jess de Wahl spoke up bravely and was cancelled. The RA social media manager hide behind a corporate account to call her a bigot, then hide for days, then slip out an apology and then undermine it.

Who is the decent, honourable, courageous person here?

He has single handedly undermined his employer and their apology in one tweet.

What a dick

It's amazing how bizarre a person's behaviour can become when they are living in a pseudoreality where they're infinitely righteous and anyone who disagrees with them are pure evil.

@bastardmonkfisher

Compare and contrast. Jess de Wahl spoke up bravely and was cancelled. The RA social media manager hide behind a corporate account to call her a bigot, then hide for days, then slip out an apology and then undermine it.

Who is the decent, honourable, courageous person here?

Exactly.

Best stick to Tweeting about farm animals in future, Adam.

Haven't seen the tweets, but if the RA are throwing their social media team under the bus for the original cancellation, but the original cancellation was based on either RA policy, decision or prevailing culture, then the RA are being performative.

I am heartily sick of big organisations blaming the kids in the social media team when things go wrong and go viral. They employ them, manage them and provide the policies and procedures under which they operate. The buck does NOT stop with the head of SM, it stops with the head of the RA. And while I guess my politics and beliefs do not exactly align with this wokebro, I don't believe he's gone rogue and wild here - if he had, the original tweet would have been taken down ten minutes after posting and JdW wouldn't have been restocked from the shop. Why should he be the one carrying the can if all he's doing is representing the beliefs of the organisation?

In other words, I read that tweet as 'my bosses are performing an apology they don't mean for something they signed off on, and I'm on a disciplinary for it.'

He's right to be pissed.

It's his schtick - and why he was hired.

tbh, I hoped it was about himself after a period of self-reflection but it seems not.

I am heartily sick of big organisations blaming the kids in the social media team when things go wrong and go viral.

I agree, they need to start putting people in these posts who have a bit more life experience.

@noraclavicle

Best stick to Tweeting about farm animals in future, Adam.

The male animals are the ones that end up in a casserole because they can't get pregnant and the female animals are the ones that end up in a casserole if they don't get pregnant. Hope that clears things up for him.

I am heartily sick of big organisations blaming the kids in the social media team when things go wrong and go viral

Generally I agree, but Adam is not an inexperienced kid.

@NoYOUbekind

In other words, I read that tweet as 'my bosses are performing an apology they don't mean for something they signed off on, and I'm on a disciplinary for it.'

He's right to be pissed.

I read it as “the grown ups took the Twitter keys off me while they got lawyers in to sort out my mess, and instead of being grateful I’ve got the hump about it.”

I hope the RA put him on the naughty step and ask him to really think about what he has done (He won't get sacked, the RA will want to draw a line under this, not attract any further negative attention, even though he's clearly shit at his job)

AK is at least thirty years old and should know better.

(or rather exactly thirty years old, I guess )

Old enough to know better, anyway. I don’t think he’s a kid being unfairly scapegoated although I get what pps are saying — the whole organisation is at fault

That's kind of my point though - he does know better, his initial statement DID reflect the prevailing ideology at the RA and so THEY are being performative about an apology they don't mean.

To be fair, my initial post should have put scare quotes round 'kids' because often it is highly trained media professionals who reflect organisational policy on social media - but when things go wrong the organisations like to pretend it was just Tristram doing his work experience rather than a senior leader who has inputted into both policy and comms.

It’s so childish of him to have popped up with that tweet, though. He should know better than to have done that.

And he’s in a well-remunerated role that could, in a better world, be occupied by someone who’s not an attention-seeking fool.

But yes, it’s pretty clear from how the apology was initially presented that the RA isn’t genuinely sorry at all.

But men don't get sacked for their hateful social media posts do they? Women get sacked for stating that sex is immutable.

@LemonJuiceFromConcentrate

Has he deleted the tweet you posted about, OP?

In spite of myself (procrastinating, should be working) I went to have a look at the 7 May tweet mentioned by a pp but I can’t see anything notable from that date, and nor can I see the “define performative” one now.

Meh, what silliness (him, not this thread)

Sorry to post and run. This was it - I took screen shot. It was 6 May.

@LemonJuiceFromConcentrate

I noticed from his Twitter bio earlier that he is still coasting on that “absolute unit” viral tweet from forever ago.

Clearly this is a man whose entire ego is so bound up with what the cool kids think of him on social media that he couldn’t resist undermining his own employer with a crappy subtweet at a sensitive moment, just to send out a hint that he is still cool

Think you've hit the nail on the head there.

I think social media does this to a lot of people. It's a blight.

@TomatoesAreFruit wow! Before he locked his account completely I scrolled down his tweets to May see what you meant, and he had already deleted it, along with today's tweet, so he must have realised just how bad it looked!

Well, it looks like he's succeeding, because rather than defusing a week that had already made a flagship arts organisation look like a bunch of misogynists and hypocrites he's actually managed to make them look even worse.

This sort of thing is not good enough. They really need to have more of a handle on what is and what is not appropriate.

Shows what we are up against however. It's gonna be a hard slog.

On the Jess de Wahls thread, someone has pointed out how Adam Koszary liked a series of tweets made by someone else criticising the RA for making the apology and also for how it allegedly treats its staff.

His conduct here is staggeringly immature and unprofessional. He’s entitled to his views, but if he doesn’t agree with how his employer runs things, he can make a grievance claim. Or he could quit and then criticise them on his SM (any severance agreement permitting).