Monday, April 19, 2010

Twitter and Barasti

Twitter: I've just started my very first twitter account! So i'm very excited and TRYING to learn more about it (apparently its more popular than I thought it was) but no worries! In due time i'll be an expert tweeter. hehe

Barasti:Is an outdoor beach pub/dance venue in DXB UAE. Very popular among expats and in the past few months, Barasti has been trying very hard to repromote themselves as a fun outdoorsie beach place that bring in entertainers like HedKandi.


The Link: A link to Arabian Business that talks about a huge online social media mishap on behalf of Barasti (or their reps)
http://www.arabianbusiness.com/584992-barasti-bar-scraps-concert-after-twitter-outrage


What was happening in the UAE
: Sheikh Ahmed bin Zayed Al Nahyan had passed away recently from a very tragic accident, the UAE was in mourning from the Tuesday all the way to Saturday. That's about 4 days.

What Barasti had been planning: They had planned to bring Vanilla Ice to do a little show for everyone (you can't exactly call it a concert in my opinion)

The Issue: Barasti Bar sent an early-afternoon text message saying: “NORMAL OPERATION. WE ARE NOT DRY! NICE, NICE BABY! 5PM-3AM C U ON THE SAND”.

Why this is an Issue:

1: UAE was mourning the Sheikh's Passing (Allah Yerhamoh)
This means that alcohol shouldn't be served as a sign of respect

2: The message shows a certain lack of respect. It also implies that expats also don't seem to care.

3: Prominent Emirati social commentator Mishaal Gergawi said on his twitter account that he was "disgusted by Barasti's SMS that they r not dry tonight!! RT [retweet] & don't stop until someone shuts it down tonight!!”

Dubai-born musician DJ Bliss said: “the question is: what do we want Barasti to do now? Apologise or cancel the show?”

Another user described the text message as “tasteless and disgusting”.



Also look at: http://fakeplasticsouks.blogspot.com/2010/04/inevitable-blog-post.html
http://www.arabianbusiness.com/585079-barasti-apologises-for-insensitive-concert-texts
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/expat/annabelkantaria/10138457/how-twitter-blocked-vanilla-ice/

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