Drag Them; Not Sure Whether To Just Enjoy Greentrolling, Or Hang My Head
“Every day on Twitter there is one main character. The goal is to never be it.” Mary Heglar, who co-authors the climate newsletter and podcast Hot Take, cites that viral tweet frequently when talking about oil and gas companies. Because right now, it’s her goal to make Big Oil the main character of Twitter every single day.
"Everything they put out is fucking bullshit,” Heglar said in a phone call this week, explaining her months-long effort to convince people to make fun of fossil fuel companies online. Heglar wants people to relentlessly, publicly drag Big Oil companies whenever they tweet about how hard they’re working to solve the climate crisis. “They’re all greenwashing,” she said. “All of it. Every single bit.” She wants people to do it primarily because it’s an effective strategy to deprive Big Oil of its social license—something executives have admitted is necessary for them to continue extracting and profiting from climate-destroying fossil fuels. But she also wants people to drag oil companies on Twitter because it’s an easy way to attract newcomers to the climate movement—and have fun in the process.
“It’s like a gateway drug into more climate activism,” Heglar said. “Even if you feel like you can't do anything else to fight climate change, you can definitely talk shit to Shell.”
EDIT
Link to tweet
She was shocked at the level of engagement it got. “I saw a lot of people pile on and do their own tweets, and I remember thinking like, ‘Wow, this is a way better use of climate Twitter than arguing with one another about how their preferred policy is bad.” The “greentrolling” movement, as she has called it, has only grown since then—and recently, Heglar got her wish: the oil company Shell became the main character of Twitter for a day.
EDIT
https://heated.world/p/drag-them
