“They’re Baa-ack!”
This past weekend, two crazy guys attempted to do some rebranding by emerging on to social media. Both Bill Cosby and O.J. Simpson popped up on Twitter over the weekend giving messages to, well, um, uh fans?
Bill Cosby, who is serving time in prison for sexual assault, wished everyone a Happy Father’s Day from “America’s Dad.”
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Yes, a man who is now perhaps one of history’s most notorious serial rapists, still sees himself as “America’s Dad.” True, only if American fatherhood were based on… serial raping.
Cosby’s Twitter message read:
Hey, Hey, Hey…It’s America’s Dad…I know it’s late, but to all of the Dads… It’s an honor to be called a Father, so let’s make today a renewed oath to fulfilling our purpose —strengthening our families and communities.
Ugh. Sociopathic shades of clueless. The Tweet to his 3.5 million followers was like classic old-school hypocritical Cosby who used to lecture African American youth for not pulling their pants up—taking the moral high-ground in public, while drugging woman outside the spotlight in private.
Somehow, Cosby thought all was forgiven on Sunday as he hashtagged #HappyFathersDay and #RenewedOathToOurFamily
Meanwhile (alleged) double-murderer O.J. Simpson also made an appearance on Twitter, giving a teaser that his new social media account is finally here. So far, O.J. has been dropping daily videos—where we can hear his thoughts and opinions about everything—as well as telling us he has some “getting even to do.” (Wait, what!?!)
Hmm? Perhaps we’ll hear his opinion on how the hunt for Nicole’s real killer is going?
O.J. Simpson is a man who can’t stand not being in the spotlight. And I know, because I once co-starred with him on the shittiest prank TV show ever called Juiced. Much like Cosby, Simpson’s sociopathic tendencies lead him to believe that the fans still adore him as they did in his Nordberg Naked Gun days.
Simpson’s Twitter account already has 652K followers. On Sunday, he wished everyone a Happy Father’s Day, which should be disturbing on several levels since his kids have been without a mother for the last 25 years due to a scenario involving a brutal double-murder—in which all fingers point in his direction.
Isn’t it great that we live in a world where we let such rogue characters as O.J. Simpson and Bill Cosby have a platform to be introspective—and let us hear their inner-thoughts—in a self-imposed attempt to rebrand themselves as likable good guys, thinking the public would forget their past heinous deed.
Social media might not be the right rebranding outlet for sociopaths. But lets look at a few other notorious characters and see how they fared in their rebranding efforts.
White lady Megyn Kelly was fired from NBC’s Today show for making inappropriate comments defending blackface. As they say, you can take the person out of Fox News, but you can’t take the Fox News out of the person. (Her move from Fox to NBC was initially seen as a major rebrand as a kinder, gentler Kelly.)
But after her blackface comment, Kelly tried to rebrand and issued a tearful “I am sorry” (for making racially insensitive comments) plea and said, she (as a woman in her 40s) was listening and learning (about being racially insensitive). Her frail apology and attempt to rebrand on social media didn’t work; Kelly still pipes in via social media with commentary on our political climate, but she’s still very much out of a job.
On the flipside of the political spectrum, comedian Kathy Griffin flew her career into the side of a mountain when she posted a photo on Twitter of herself holding up what appeared to be the bloody, severed head of Donald Trump. You know, the edgggggy comedy. This resulted in her getting fired from her CNN New Year’s Eve gig and the FBI paying her a visit.
But what helped Griffin’s social media rebranding was the fact that Trump continually rolls out policies such as locking immigrant children up in cages. Her outrage on social media has helped her rebound, such as when she wrote on Twitter that First Lady Melania Trump was a “feckless complicit piece of shit.” Despite that the initial severed Trump head gag really had zero humor value, Griffin’s rebranding on Twitter has made her a martyr for the left—and she even has a new concert movie coming out.
To end on a feel-good note, two decades ago, Monica Lewinsky became the butt of late night TV jokes after that whole national scandal with then-President Bill Clinton. For some reason, at a time long before the #MeToo movement, the 22-year old White House intern was seen as the instigator of a sexual scandal involving an older man in power. But thanks to Twitter rebranding, Lewinsky has reinvented herself as a staunch anti-bullying advocate. Social media has given Lewinsky a voice—where she was once seen simply as a punchline.
