Rooney Burger Highlights Twitter Abuse Issue

As if England’s World Cup woes weren’t enough for Roy Hodgson and his men, England star Wayne Rooney has been subject to yet more abuse on social media platforms following his apologetic status regarding his performances on his official Facebook page.

The England forward was once hailed the ‘White Pele’ by Sir Alex Ferguson but after a glittering career at club level he’s failed to live up to that weight of expectation on football’s greatest stage – The World Cup. This has led to a backlash from England fans and even businesses who instead of supporting the team have decided to make their opinions public in a variety of ways.

The latest instalment comes from Chicken Lodge, a takeaway restaurant in Manchester, who humorously brought their latest chicken burger to the market which goes by the name of the ‘Rooney Burger’. 

Described as plain, nothing special and over-priced the ‘Rooney Burger’ is now available at £18 a burger, luckily a lot cheaper than Rooney’s own price tag at Manchester United.

The restaurant later proceeded to target England captain Steven Gerrard when the takeaway commented on their own status with the following message - “you can also buy the Gerrard burger, same deal, same price”.

Rebecca Adlington is also another prime example who has been the subject of Twitter and social media trolls when she received abuse over the way she looked. Even after winning Olympic medals, Adlington was tormented over the size of her nose which left her so self-conscious she eventually ended up getting surgery to reduce its size.  In an interview back in April, she revealed that she had blocked thousands of people on Twitter who sent her abusive messages and tweets.

Marketing activity like the ‘Rooney Burger’ isn’t the problem; in fact it’s very clever and follows a similar approach to Paddy Power’s social media activity, however it does highlight the amount of abuse certain celebrities receive on social media networks. Social media is all about conversation and opinions, but while that is great in many regards, celebrities have been constantly abused by ‘trolls’ on social media platforms with no real solution to the problem. Whilst banter is classified as one thing, murder, racial and rape threats are another and social media networks needs to monitor this to better effect, to ensure high profile celebrities like Wayne Rooney and Rebecca Adlington are protected.

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