Chrissy Teigen quit Snapchat after that horrifying Rihanna and Chris Brown ad, and we don’t blame her
If you still aren’t over the big Snapchat update that happened earlier this year, you aren’t alone. Even celebrities have been speaking out about the messaging app’s major redesign flaws. It definitely didn’t help matters much when Snapchat promoted an awful Rihanna and Chris Brown ad that seemed to make light of domestic violence. Rihanna publicly (and rightfully) spoke out against the incident, and she certainly wasn’t the only one. Chrissy Teigen is the latest celeb to quit Snapchat after the horrifying ad, and we don’t blame her.
The ad was for a third-party game called “Would You Rather?” and asked users to choose between two options: “Slap Rihanna” or “Punch Chris Brown.” (No, we’re not making this up.) It’s never okay to mock domestic violence or make it seem like it’s something to joke around about.
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released in July 2017 showed that a mind-boggling 55% of women who are murdered in the U.S. are victims of intimate partner violence.
The horrifying statistics don’t stop there. The report also found that 15% of such woman are either pregnant or have recently given birth at the time of their deaths. And considering that firearms account for about 54% of U.S. homicides related to intimate partner violence, the CDC went so far as to recommend that persons under domestic violence restraining orders have limited access to guns.
Is it just me, or is this ad that popped up on my Snapchat extremely tone deaf? Like what were they thinking with this? pic.twitter.com/7kP9RHcgNG
— Royce Carter Mann (@royceforatlanta) March 12, 2018
The Rihanna ad was the last straw for Chrissy Teigen.
The Lip Sync Battle co-host announced her decision to quit Snapchat on Twitter.
I stopped using snap. The update, the constant complaints of people not being able to find me, plus the Rihanna poll…no bueno
— chrissy teigen (@chrissyteigen) March 24, 2018
One Twitter user tried to take Chrissy Teigen to task for making her decision public, saying it could hurt Snapchat employees who had nothing to do with the ad itself.
In true Teigen fashion, though, she clapped right back:
Except concerns have been brought up for months and this isn't different from any other company where quality affects sales. Everyone has been very vocal about the changes and frustrations. Consumers shouldn't *have* to work with companies beyond that.
— chrissy teigen (@chrissyteigen) March 24, 2018
We couldn’t agree more with Teigen — or Rihanna, whose slamming of Snapchat resulted in the company losing about $800 million in value. Though Snapchat apologized for its “terrible mistake” and promised it would never happen again, the company has the responsibility to review advertising content, so this really should have never happened in the first place.
Between this Snapchat incident and Facebook privacy concerns, it looks like a social media reckoning is in the works.
