Wendy's won and lost an epic Twitter troll war in just 24 hours
Wendy's experienced that fall from grace firsthand on Wednesday after its Twitter account tweeted, then deleted, an image of Pepe the Frog dressed up as Wendy's mascot. Once a commonly used meme, Pepe was declared a "hate symbol" by the Anti-Defamation League in September after being frequently used online to express racist and anti-Semitic messages.
The Daily Beast's Colin Jones noticed the tweet before Wendy's deleted it.
The tweet was apparently in response to Twitter user MrRespek asking the account, "Got any memes?"
According to Wendy's, the tweet wasn't intended to offend anyone.
"Our community manager was unaware of the recent political connotations associated with Pepe memes and it has since been removed," Wendy's social media manager Amy Brown told Business Insider. "Since this used to be purely an innocuous meme, he had this fan content saved from a year or two ago."
Just a day earlier, Wendy's Twitter account went viral after roasting a Twitter user for questioning the company's promise of "fresh, never frozen, beef."
The account continued to write hilarious responses to people tweeting at the brand throughout the day. It was an example of the bizarre and beautiful interactions that are possible between brand accounts and random people on social media.
Wendy's Twitter account fires off dozens of tweets an hour. Like many fast-food chains, these are typically a mix of lighthearted responses to compliments, banter with customers seeking conversation, and earnest apologies for customer complaints.
In the lightning-fast world of social media, brands are forced to react quickly. Sometimes that can pay off, as in the case of Wendy's refrigerator tweet or Arby's now-iconic comparison between its logo and Pharrell's hat. However often times, it seems like brand social media accounts can cause more harm than good.