The University of Toledo introduced a challenge to their Twitter followers on Tuesday morning – sparking tons of attention, excitement, and outrage. The challenge? Help a picture of Shrek get 500,000 retweets and the university would change their mascot to the beloved green ogre.
Twitter quickly exploded, with the photo having over 90,000 retweets and counting until the tweet was deleted later in the afternoon. Apparently, Twitter had taken the challenge a bit too seriously.
The school’s media relations specialist, Christine Billau, dispelled the rumors and revealed the tweet as being a fun gimmick the school’s social media was trying out.
“We are definitely not changing the school mascot to Shrek,” Billau told USA Today Sports. “The tweet was meant to be fun, but it caused too much of a distraction.”
Apparently, the tweet was in line with a series of funny jokes and memes the school’s social media team had been posting to increase engagement. Twitter didn’t think so.
I think the @DWAnimation IP lawyers will have something to say about that but let’s not look at the negative.
— jefeto (@jefetogreen) April 24, 2018
how much do you think it would cost them to clear this with dreamworks to get the rights to have shrek as their mascot https://t.co/BIK35EA5wo
— Robby Kalland (@RKalland) April 24, 2018
You’re playing with fire, UT. The internet is not to be trifled with
— Temporary Winnipeg Jets Fan (@PTPJacob) April 24, 2018
Billau also said that if the tweet reached its goal, the school would do something fun with their current mascot, Rocky the Rocket. With the tweet now deleted, those plans are unclear. In the meantime, the Internet is having a blast with the now blown up joke.