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

@Realista

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).

He has a personal website linked to his twitter where he actually advertises his services as a social media strategist!

I think he's about to go viral again. But not in a good way.

That 6th May tweet would be enough to get most people sacked!

It reminds me of the episode a few weeks ago, sorry I can’t remember exact details, when a Uni student posted a picture of a gun, saying he was going looking for “TERFs”. When people pointed it out to the Uni Twitter team, they were told off for being Transphobic.
The Uni did clarify and issued a grovelling apology within hours iirc. Also the person in charge of that account, resigned. I do wonder if they disagree with the apology and it seems Adam K has a similar attitude.

@ScreamingMeMe

I think he's about to go viral again. But not in a good way.

I think you're right. Just typed 'Adam' into the search box on Twitter and his full name was the third suggestion...

Why do you think I typed out his name in full?

I have no desire to get anyone driven out of his job but if his job is both commination and PR (surely why orgs have a twitter account) and he undermines his employer and their sincere (?) apology or reveals the insincerity(?) of their apology ~(who knows - that's the trouble - it makes you doubt) then surely he is in the wrong job. And he is not a kid, he is a comms pro who knows exactly what he is doing.

I am not going to 'be kind' about this - another complaint is going in. The link if anyone else wants to complain directly to the RA. I hope they realise this really is not going to go away.

www.royalacademy.org.uk/contact-us

Absolute unit.

Oh I see — yeah I did see that 6 May tweet earlier, actually.

Much as I think this guy has terrible judgement, in context of the tweets he’d sent just before that one, it read pretty clearly as just being self-deprecating humour. He had just been trying out some clunky, ‘knowing’ wordplay or puns or something, iirc.

It does look unintentionally prophetic now though 👀

@LemonJuiceFromConcentrate

Oh I see — yeah I did see that 6 May tweet earlier, actually.

Much as I think this guy has terrible judgement, in context of the tweets he’d sent just before that one, it read pretty clearly as just being self-deprecating humour. He had just been trying out some clunky, ‘knowing’ wordplay or puns or something, iirc.

It does look unintentionally prophetic now though 👀

I've NCd for this as I know AK personally through work. We follow each other on Twitter (so I can still see his account even though it's locked) and I've just looked back and screenshotted the May tweet. As LemonJuice says, it's clearly a joke, and I don't think people do themselves any favours by taking it out of context like that.

Having said that, I do agree that today's tweet is disturbing, especially without any context, and I wouldn't be surprised if he got into trouble for it. He's a nice guy, and talented at what he does, but his career blew up in a very sudden and overwhelming way, and I think that has led to his becoming arrogant and displaying poor judgement (at least, compared with when I knew him).

[Images removed at posters request]

Just a heads up @ElliePascoe that your Twitter avatar may be visible on that screenshot.

Oh no

Ellie, I panicked for you and reported your post just to be on the safe side, but I apologise if that was unnecessary. And also thank you for the clarification.

Shit, I didn't realise that! Thanks, I'll report as well.

@Realista

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).

But this is how employees do things now. Remember the publisher (Hatchette?) who had to remind colleagues that sometimes they might have to DO THEIR JOB and publish books they don't personally agree with.

I find it beyond arrogant, but social media has destroyed boundaries, tribalism has leaked into the workplace and here we are.

@ElliePascoe just to correct my post earlier, the original comment referred to a 7th May tweet which I assumed he'd also removed when I scrolled down to 7th May before he locked his account. Apparently it was the 6th May so may be still there, but I didn't see it.

Maybe I was unfair to post the May tweet. I saw it a couple of days ago and did an eye roll but didn't post it at the time.

I just think that Jess didn't want or deserve any of this. The social media team posted without any regard for her wellbeing. Then Alex Koszary undermined the apology, with no regard for Jess or his own employer.

It might be that he was scapegoated, but if he was, his tweet today won't help his cause.

But this is how employees do things now

Perhaps so @GroggyLegs. Boundaries are certainly often skewed on SM these days. But many employees know to write in their bios that their views don't represent that of their employer, and know that their views will get considered by their employer.

I think in this case it's more than tribalism. I have a theory that AK thought that by hiring him, the RA were deliberately buying his personal brand and that they wanted him to tweet about them personally because he had a large personal following after going viral.

I only saw his 6th May tweet today but even out of context I assumed that it was a joke and didn't take it seriously or think of it when I talked earlier about his statement today or tweets he liked. However, by mentioning the RA in it (the tweet of 6th May), he was clearly comfortable by linking himself with his employer in a way that even these days most employees and employers wouldn't find acceptable. Perhaps the RA liked that approach; if they did then they are equally to blame for the bad boundaries.

Feel like such an old fart, but I just want some corporate formality back... clearly you can't put the genie back in the social media bottle now, but these companies and this 'ok boomer' approach just drive me mad. Some professionalism really wouldn't go amiss.

The mythical 'blue haired intern' saying what they like while the boss can't figure out what the internet is a myth at this point really isn't it? That's the problem here.

At work our digital manager is the best paid person in our comms team by the way, and still has no authority to go rogue. And if they did so on a personal profile that linked them to their job that wouldn't end well. Don't understand why it would be any different for this idiot.

What does this mean? Does he think that the furore was performative on the part of women defending Jess?

FWIW, I suspect the meaning is that the Royal Academy's "Pride" stuff including current rainbow flag logo is performative. They're clearly not true believers if they're issuing apologies to transphobes.

Much as we roll our eyes at all these corporations with their rainbow nonsense, so do the the activists, who think they don't really mean it. So they talk about it being performative.

(I've seen similar rants from people about others using the "correct" pronouns for them but not really meaning it. They can tell they're just being polite, and don't really Believe, and that's so triggering...)

I've watched Adam's career as I live in Reading - the MERL was such a tiny insignificant museum before he took the reins of its social media. He really became a museum social media darling and it wasn't just from the absolute unit tweet, it was followed by loads of ideas that got so many museums talking to one another, like the "unsolicited duck pic". Because of this, he was headhunted by Elon Musk to work for Tesla, and the whole thing probably went to his head. I'm not sure whether he still works for tesla... He clearly thinks he's bigger than the royal academy now and that he knows best. He's let Reading down, for sure.

I think the 'performative' line was about the apology itself. There may be - and I very much hope there are - people at the RA who see why 'cancelling' Jess de Wahls was wrong and recognise and respect women's concerns, but the way in which the apology was formatted and presented online strongly suggests there are those who decide on such matters who don't. As someone pointed out on Twitter, the apology itself, when it eventually came, was very much a Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy 'Beware of the Leopard' type, hidden away without mentioning Jess de Wahls by name in the tweet, the link taking you to the RA's main page where it was again hidden away in a corner with nothing in the bland headline indicating what the media statement was about, and then taking you to a PDF.

I've just looked at the responses to the RA apology post on Instagram. People are losing their shit over there.

@teawamutu

I've just looked at the responses to the RA apology post on Instagram. People are losing their shit over there.

I looked yesterday and thought the same

Brutal in parts. Not great all round

@teawamutu

I've just looked at the responses to the RA apology post on Instagram. People are losing their shit over there.

It's JKR all over again. People screeching 'hate' who could not possibly have read what she said.

@teawamutu

I've just looked at the responses to the RA apology post on Instagram. People are losing their shit over there.

I did the same and regretted it instantly. Cult like.

It's very weird, the way different platforms react. I found this story here (and am GC anyway) but looked at it on twitter and thought 'ah, the grown ups are here' - a friend asked me about it, she's only on Instagram and she'd decided the RA were completely transphobic. She's not really engaged with this issue before, so there's that, but I think she would have reached a different conclusion if she'd read about it on Twitter.