The hours after our post on social media don’ts based on The Western Co.’s case study were intense, to say the least.
A post from local food blogger Seth Lui immediately caught the attention of both netizens and ourselves, as he went into details of not only the business and its owners, but his personal experience with the eatery’s management as well.
TL;DR – they engaged in his blog for coverage, he did the work but the promised payment never made its way to him.
The post has since been taken down (even its syndication on Yahoo), but the juicy bits that got the most attention have been covered by publications Mothership and Coconuts Singapore – in case you’re interested.
Drawing flak from some netizens who were saying that he only took the post down because he got paid, Lui took to his personal Facebook account yesterday evening, and acknowledged that while he knows “many people will say [he] lack[s] journalistic integrity”, calls from The Western Co.’s owner pleading with him to take it down made him reevaluate the post.
The Western Co. on the other hand, has gone into radio silence since yesterday afternoon, having deleted its Facebook page and making its Instagram account private.
But it seems like someone, or some people, have just created a very cheeky parody of The Western Co.’s Facebook page – complete with snarky replies to comments.
“A better beginning!”
Taking a guess from its first posts, the page was incepted at around 11pm last night.
And really, you have to give it to the creators – the page looks legit enough, pat down to a very convincing logo (save for the obvious stock image of a header).
In fact, the ‘restaurant’ has already gotten five 1-star reviews:
The admins even engaged in some good old commenting shenanigans, when an unassuming Facebook user aired his grievances on the page:
Staying in character, a dig was also made at the “NETS, no NETS” issue that was highlighted in the post that started it all:
The page is still relatively new and hasn’t caught on with many yet, but I think it’s safe to say – the internet truly never forgets.