2014 – The Year That Was: Top 10 Social Media Fails

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Social media fails

1: Leaked Pics - Todd Carney
It looked like being a quiet winter’s Saturday night on the NRL front. That was until pictures emerged – taken by a ‘mate’ – of Todd Carney finding new ways to quench his thirst. The photos – too explicit for us to publish properly – caused such a stir on social media it made sure everyone knew what the term Bubbling meant within 24 hours. Carney, though, was sacked by the Sharks and now finds himself playing in France. FULL STORY

2: Given the Bootsma – Josh Bootsma
It’s never a good idea to fire off photos of your junk when you’re an AFL player. It’s even less of a good idea to send them to a girl who’s not your girlfriend when you’re actual girlfriend is just weeks away from giving birth to your child. Unfortunately for Josh Bootsma, that’s exactly what he did, earning him the sack from Carlton midway through the year. FULL STORY

3: Not so Noyce tweet – Paul Gallen
There have been plenty of weird twists and turns with the Cronulla ASADA case but one of the more recent ones was out of the box for strangeness. Sharks skipper Paul Gallen was having a big night on the turps in Hawaii when he discovered Cronulla CEO Steve Noyce had been sacked. His response earned him a massive NRL fine and his sacking as NSW captain, although that was later rescinded. It’s probably not hard to see why the NRL was so peeved though. FULL STORY
 

4: ROK Hard – Ryan O’Keefe
This one was a viral campaign that made us go ‘ewww’. Former Sydney champion O’Keefe was an invisible man at the Swans in 2014 and having seen the writing on the wall, appears to have agreed to one last cash grab. It was a biggie, though, as he and his wife, Tara, became the faces of a condom advertising campaign called ’30 Nights of Nookie’, where they agreed to jump the horse – clearly we don’t mean John Longmire by that – each night during September. The sad part about this was it pretty much showed everyone O’Keefe wasn’t in Sydney’s finals plans and he was pretty much done as a player at the club, having wasted most of the 2014 season in the twos. FULL STORY

5: You’ve Been Warned – Shane Warne
When you followed Shane Warne on Twitter, you sort of know that one day you may – just may – be exposed to something you didn’t want to see. After all, he’s not known as the fastest texter in the land for nothing now, is he? Unfortunately, though, there was no warning before this seflie was dished out on the Twittersphere. And once you see it, you can’t unsee it!

6: The Sir-Sage – Sir Ian ‘Beefy’ Botham
Speaking of cricketing selfie fails we couldn’t go past this one from Sir Ian Botham. Not much more needs to be said I dare say, although Botham does claim he was hacked! FULL STORY

7: Snapped – Konrad Hurrell
Josh Bootsma wasn’t the only sportsperson to get themselves in trouble with Snapchat. In May videos emerged of Warriors centre Konrad Hurrell and New Zealand actress Teuila Blakely getting closer acquainted, shall we say. Making it worse, in the video Hurrell is actually driving at the time while Blakely performs a lewd act on him. The video was apparently filmed in March this year but didn’t see the light of day until two months later via Snapchat and Tumblr, making one wonder who actually released it. FULL STORY

8: Super Good or Super Bad? – J.C. Penney
While some companies spent a fortune advertising at this year’s Superbowl, American department store J.C. Penney probably sparked the most interest without spending much cash. These tweets were initially deemed a social media fail and quite a few people suggested the intern responsible may be facing a breathalyser and the sack. But it turns out the companies that responded to this were merely playing into the J.C. Penney strategy. 

The tweets led to companies like Mars (Snickers) replying.

Mars wasn’t the only one as other companies tried cashing in on re-tweets of the J.C Penney post. But in the end, it turned out the store was just trying to advertise mittens. 


The campaign was an attempt to hijack Superbowl social media, in a way Oreo did in 2013 when they tweeted the message, ‘You can still dunk in the dark’ as the lights went out for 34 minutes in New Orleans. “We knew Twitter would be very active but wanted to find a way to stay above the Super Bowl fray and instead create our own narrative,” a J.C. Penney spokeswoman told BuzzFeed. But according to some reports, the advertisers didn’t consider people would think the account hacked or the person handling the tweets was drunk. Social media fail or success, you decide!

9. Burgo in the buff – George Burgess
Just a few weeks after the Todd Carney pics emerged, South Sydney’s George Burgess had a go himself, sending out some nude selfies of his own. The Rabbitohs didn’t take any action against Burgess, despite the 21-year-old Englishman in 2014 also throwing a sign through a car window in Cairns this year. 

10. Fight Club – Perth Glory
They may be riding high at the moment but last February, things weren’t quite so rosy at Perth Glory. There was plenty of infighting as player power ousted Alistair Edwards but the fights weren’t just internal  as Scott Jamieson and Danny Vukovic fired up at Glory blogger Dave Meacock. To his great credit, Vukovic was quick to apologise for a heat-of-the-moment comment but we think Jamieson really wanted to have a go old’school style.
 

The social media angst apparently wasn’t limited to just players though. This screen grab appears to suggest someone from the club became angry with a fan on Facebook. We have to say, we can’t be entirely sure this was the official Perth Glory account sending this out, but it does have that look.
 

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