The official MLB Twitter account tried to make use of the Spider-Man pointing meme on Friday night, and did a very bad job of it.
The tweet featured a photo of Shohei Ohtani and Ichiro Suzuki, with the caption reading, “*Spider-Man pointing meme*.”
🚨🚨DELETED TWEET 🚨🚨
(THX @Wlhssuperjake08!) pic.twitter.com/mS72bcQAit
— Freezing Cold Takes (@OldTakesExposed) July 28, 2018
So, that’s bad. There are definitely much, much better ways to try to explain that Ohtani and Ichiro are Japanese baseball superstars.
MLB deleted the tweet, but not before many Twitter followers pointed out how racist it came across. It’s especially not a good look following everything with Josh Hader’s racist and homophobic tweets, which surfaced during the All-Star Game.
Here’s some of the Twitter reaction to the tweet:
— Jer (@InTheMindOfJer) July 28, 2018
On a scale of 0-4, how many seconds did you think this through before tweeting it?
— Levi Weaver (@ThreeTwoEephus) July 28, 2018
https://twitter.com/sung_minkim/status/1023026763016749057
https://twitter.com/aaron_kennelly/status/1023030081546006528
Hi @mlb I know you’ve been concerned about attracting more fans and you seem to think pace of play is the problem. But have you considered not being racist and sexist and exclusionary to the countless people who want to love your sport?
— just here for the hot dogs (@javyisking09) July 28, 2018
https://twitter.com/El__Tipo/status/1023019284585488384
Hader hacked the MLB acct wow
— Sean (@seanl9498) July 28, 2018
https://twitter.com/FaithHopeLove_J/status/1023060829577592832
So far, @MLB hasn’t tweeted out an apology.
