During last night’s Oscar win, the congratulations that Lupita Nyong’o received on Twitter practically broke the social media outlet. But imagine if she hadn’t won. It probably would have gone something like this:
After Lupita ascended her rightful throne—I mean the stage; no, I actually mean throne—it was too hard to keep up with the “YASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS” tweets, the “OMGGGGGG SHE WON” tweets or the “She better ‘werk’” tweets.
After everyone was able to wipe their tears off the keyboard, a tweet popped up from the Huffington Post. Sure, it was sort of congratulatory. But then again, side eyes abounded.
How are you going to congratulate Lupita on her win and then advertise a book mocking an African country’s name, penned by one of the most flagrant comics ever? As soon as the tweet was posted, Huffington’s mentions were in shambles:
But that wasn’t the last of what seemed like a viral marketing attempt on behalf of Handler and Huffington:
Go to Africa or buy #ugandabekiddingme?
The Huffington Post still hasn’t deleted the tweets and probably won’t, since Handler probably paid for them. HuffPost also hasn’t apologized for its tackiness.
In any event, Lupita slayed the Oscars, and it’s going to take more than a paid advertisement for Handler’s book to bring her down!
Yesha Callahan is a full-time writer and single mother living in Columbia, Md. She has written for BlogHer, Jezebel and The Grio and has been seen on HuffPost Live and TV One’s NewsOne Now With Roland Martin. She is currently the managing editor of Clutch magazine and is a former comedy and politics writer for BET’s Don’t Sleep! Hosted by T.J. Holmes.
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