Employees at tbh Skincare jumped on the trend that went viral on TikTok, and it quickly got out of control. (Source: TikTok)
Lawyers have warned workplaces to be careful about jumping on TikTok trends after a group of Australian workers became embroiled in a social media storm. tbh skincare posted a video of six employees walking around in a circle doing the trend by describing themselves in catchy phrases.
Sounds harmless, right? In fact, the video garnered nasty comments on the original post before it was uploaded to X, with sentiments ranging from misogynistic to nasty. The company’s co-founder Rachel Wilde told Yahoo Finance that the response was “like nothing we’ve ever experienced before.”
“Comments about X will naturally be very different from comments about the kind of viral content you typically see on TikTok or Instagram because X has a very different audience,” she said.
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“I was pretty surprised how quickly such a harmless, trend-based video garnered so much hate and trolling in the comments section.
“I still don’t understand why everyone is so upset.”
The original video has had over 4 million views on TikTok so far, and scrolling through the nearly 1,000 comments, many are praising the women and saying that tbh’s skincare looks great in an office setting.
But when you switch to the X, the mood changes rapidly.
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“We have a productive person in our organization, and yet the diversity department is dedicated to making his life complicated and painful,” one user said.
“For women, a career is about getting social status and girlboss points, not about loving and appreciating the work. To them, it’s like LAR,” another said.
‘Disturbing’ reaction to viral video
Wilde told Yahoo Finance that when he first got a flood of hateful comments, he found it all “funny,” but that didn’t last long.
The story continues
“As the video grew in size, we became more and more concerned because we realized it had taken on a life of its own, completely beyond our control,” she said.
“I think the shocking part for me was when I realised that ‘Gen Z Bosses and Minis’ is actually an X thing.
“The comments were thread after thread, I couldn’t even scroll through them all, and a new post appeared every five minutes.”
Wilde said she was “very proud” of the way the women handled the situation, explaining that the company was “offering appropriate support” to all involved.
Viral infections can have a big impact
The company’s co-founder said the “funny” TikTok videos had resulted in staff receiving nasty comments and even threats to their safety.
Roxanne Hart of the law firm Hart & Co told Yahoo Finance that contracting the virus can have a significant impact on a person’s mental state.
“They’re coming into work and they’re getting threats in the mail or whatever,” she said. “Some people might feel anxious every time they open their mail, they don’t know what they’re going to get.”
“They don’t know what other people know about them, so they’re reluctant to open their inbox. I can see this leading to mental breakdowns, anxiety attacks and literally being unable to use email.”
Attorney Roxanne Hart warned against workplaces jumping on the bandwagon of the virus. (Source: Provided)
The lawyer argued that it was not an exaggeration for a psychologist to call this a “workplace injury” leading to a workplace compensation claim.
Hart said workers who are forced to take time off work due to undue stress as a result of the video going viral could also claim personal income protection insurance.
The employment lawyer said workplaces also have a duty to ensure employees are not subjected to sexual harassment, which is typically handled internally, but posting content on social media can create new problems by allowing outsiders to sexually harass employees.
The maximum fine for a company that fails to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace is $66,000.
Hart said that because the post was made on a company account, not an employee’s, any backlash is the responsibility of the workplace, adding that this incident should serve as a warning to all companies about involving employees in social media posts.
Fighting back against hatred
In follow-up posts, the women involved in the original TikTok video joked about the nasty comments people had left.
“We thought it would be a fun way to hit back at all the hate and turn it into a trend,” Wilde told Yahoo Finance.
“Thankfully, this landed on the right side of TikTok and garnered a lot of support from our existing and newfound community. Ultimately, we chose to focus on the positive comments rather than the negative ones and decided to ride the wave and stay true to ourselves.”
She added that her overnight fame has led to a huge increase in her social media following and a surge in traffic to her website.
They are also taking advantage of this opportunity to offer a “Gen Z Bosses and Minis” bundle pack.
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