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 Troiano (@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
|￣￣￣￣￣￣ |
| HIRE |
| MORE |
| PEOPLE |
| OF I
I COLOR I
| ＿＿＿＿＿__|
(__/) ||
(•ㅅ•) ||
/ づ pic.twitter.com/Q0vKlsYOcr— Sung Min Kim (@sung_minkim) July 28, 2018
Do better @MLB. It's not that hard to not be racist.
— Aaron Kennelly (@aaron_kennelly) July 28, 2018
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
Seems a bit racist , @mlb pic.twitter.com/3DLdv2aJZE
— H (@HSL_26) July 28, 2018
Hader hacked the MLB acct wow
— Sean (@seanl9498) July 28, 2018
MLB’s tweet implied “Asians all look alike”!
Spider-Man pointing at Spider-Man (caption in MLB tweet; popular GIF below)
Shohei Ohtani looking at Ichiro Suzuki (picture in @MLB tweet)
That MLB tweet was not funny.
It was racism. pic.twitter.com/IxiRZIj2kQ— Jane ????? WearAMask?StayHome (@themamajane) July 28, 2018
So far, @MLB hasn’t tweeted out an apology.
