Bp Oil Spill

2010eventclassic

The BP Oil Spill, tied to the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, became an internet lightning rod thanks to the parody Twitter account @BPGlobalPR, which drew nearly 150,000 followers by mocking BP's real public-relations feed. Alongside the sarcastic tweets and #bpcares hashtag, image macros, comics, and Urban Dictionary slang turned the leak into one of 2010's defining online moments of corporate mockery.

corporate mockery memessarcasm memestwitter memesearly 2010s memeshashtag memes

Overview

The BP Oil Spill entered internet culture as both a real-world catastrophe and a running joke. On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, and by the time BP sealed the well in September, roughly 205.8 million gallons of crude had poured into the ocean4. As BP's public-relations team put out carefully worded statements, users on Twitter and blogs turned the gap between corporate messaging and reality into fodder for sarcastic tweets, image macros, and comics4.

The most recognizable piece of the meme was @BPGlobalPR, a parody Twitter account that pretended to be BP's PR staff and posted increasingly bleak jokes about the disaster1. Its author, using the pseudonyms "Terry" and later "Leroy Stick," ran the account as a form of protest, arguing BP was flooding the internet with hollow talking points instead of hard answers2. Alongside the parody feed, Urban Dictionary entries reworked "BP Oil Spill" into slang for any giant mess, from a hallway vomit incident to bathroom disasters6.

How It Spread

CNN covered the parody account on May 26, 2010, noting it had roughly 38,000 followers while BP's real handle sat around 5,0004. Days later, The Daily Beast ran a side-by-side of tweets from both accounts, asking readers to guess which was real4. On June 2, 2010, a manifesto signed "Leroy Stick" appeared on the blog Street Giant, framing the parody as a rebuke of empty corporate PR4.

Twitter itself stepped in on June 9, 2010, at BP's request, asking the anonymous operator to make it clearer that the account was not affiliated with the company1. The bio was rewritten to read, "We are not associated with Beyond Petroleum, the company that has been destroying the Gulf of Mexico for 51 days"1. By that point the parody had almost 150,000 followers versus BP's few thousand, and coverage of the takedown request only pulled in more attention1.

The broader online reaction went far past a single Twitter account. A Facebook group calling for a BP boycott gathered more than 772,000 likes by November 20124. Greenpeace filed a Freedom of Information Act request in August 2010, and the images it eventually pried loose, including photos of oiled sea turtles and a decomposing sperm whale found 77 miles from the spill site, drove another wave of online anger years after the well was sealed5.

How to Use This Meme

The BP Oil Spill meme had two common flavors. The first was straight parody in the @BPGlobalPR template: a tweet in the voice of a smug, out-of-touch corporate PR staffer, often tagged with #bpcares, treating a catastrophe as a minor image problem1. The second was slang usage, where "a BP oil spill" was used on Urban Dictionary and in casual conversation for any large, disgusting mess6.

Frequently Asked Questions

Bp Oil Spill

2010eventclassic

The BP Oil Spill, tied to the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, became an internet lightning rod thanks to the parody Twitter account @BPGlobalPR, which drew nearly 150,000 followers by mocking BP's real public-relations feed. Alongside the sarcastic tweets and #bpcares hashtag, image macros, comics, and Urban Dictionary slang turned the leak into one of 2010's defining online moments of corporate mockery.

corporate mockery memes sarcasm memes twitter memes early 2010s memes hashtag memes

Overview

The BP Oil Spill entered internet culture as both a real-world catastrophe and a running joke. On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, and by the time BP sealed the well in September, roughly 205.8 million gallons of crude had poured into the ocean4. As BP's public-relations team put out carefully worded statements, users on Twitter and blogs turned the gap between corporate messaging and reality into fodder for sarcastic tweets, image macros, and comics4.

The most recognizable piece of the meme was @BPGlobalPR, a parody Twitter account that pretended to be BP's PR staff and posted increasingly bleak jokes about the disaster1. Its author, using the pseudonyms "Terry" and later "Leroy Stick," ran the account as a form of protest, arguing BP was flooding the internet with hollow talking points instead of hard answers2. Alongside the parody feed, Urban Dictionary entries reworked "BP Oil Spill" into slang for any giant mess, from a hallway vomit incident to bathroom disasters6.

How It Spread

CNN covered the parody account on May 26, 2010, noting it had roughly 38,000 followers while BP's real handle sat around 5,0004. Days later, The Daily Beast ran a side-by-side of tweets from both accounts, asking readers to guess which was real4. On June 2, 2010, a manifesto signed "Leroy Stick" appeared on the blog Street Giant, framing the parody as a rebuke of empty corporate PR4.

Twitter itself stepped in on June 9, 2010, at BP's request, asking the anonymous operator to make it clearer that the account was not affiliated with the company1. The bio was rewritten to read, "We are not associated with Beyond Petroleum, the company that has been destroying the Gulf of Mexico for 51 days"1. By that point the parody had almost 150,000 followers versus BP's few thousand, and coverage of the takedown request only pulled in more attention1.

The broader online reaction went far past a single Twitter account. A Facebook group calling for a BP boycott gathered more than 772,000 likes by November 20124. Greenpeace filed a Freedom of Information Act request in August 2010, and the images it eventually pried loose, including photos of oiled sea turtles and a decomposing sperm whale found 77 miles from the spill site, drove another wave of online anger years after the well was sealed5.

How to Use This Meme

The BP Oil Spill meme had two common flavors. The first was straight parody in the @BPGlobalPR template: a tweet in the voice of a smug, out-of-touch corporate PR staffer, often tagged with #bpcares, treating a catastrophe as a minor image problem1. The second was slang usage, where "a BP oil spill" was used on Urban Dictionary and in casual conversation for any large, disgusting mess6.

Frequently Asked Questions