Today’s newest viral scandal that has everyone outraged is United Airlines’ forceful removal of a passenger from a flight.
Although, unfortunately, we have a good feeling everyone will eventually forget the terrible incident because look at the track record.
Joseph Kony
Anyone still remember Kony?
In 2012, a documentary titled “Kony 2012” was released by Invisible Children, an organization created to bring awareness to the Lord’s Resistance Army and their activities in Central Africa.
The film was part of a campaign to have Kony, the indicted war criminal and leader of the LRA, arrested by 2012. The video quickly spread like wildfire.
P.S. Kony still hasn’t been captured.
We bet you or someone you know has watched this video at least once.
Donald Sterling
Ahh, the good old former LA Clippers owner.
His girlfriend had recorded Donald Sterling going on a racist rant where he told her that he didn’t want her to bring black people to the games or post any pictures with black people on Instagram.
Sterling ended up receiving a lifetime ban from the NBA and fined $2.5 million.
Nate Parker
Nate Parker’s film “Birth of a Nation” got more attention than it bargained for after stealing the spotlight at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.
Great anticipation surrounding the film was thwarted when Parker’s 1999 rape case resurfaced.
Even though the director was never convicted, the scandal was all anyone talked about for months, ultimately affecting the film’s box office success.
Hillary Clinton’s Emails
Unless you’re Donald Trump, you’ve probably already forgotten about Hillary’s emails.
In 2015, it was revealed that Clinton used a private email server for official communications while she was the Secretary of State instead of her official email server which is on federal servers.
Several of the emails she sent on her private server contained classified and sensitive information.
Her emails pretty much took over her 2016 presidential campaign.
Wells Fargo
Raise your hand if you never canceled your account at Wells Fargo.
The banking giant made headlines in 2016 (and some of 2017) after it was discovered that its employees were creating millions of fake accounts for their clients and submitted over 500,000 credit card applications all without the customer’s knowledge.
It was a big mess. Over 5,000 employees were fired and now two former executives are forced to pay $75 million.
Enron
Way back when in the good old days of 2001, Enron was the 7th largest company in the U.S. and its stocks had peaked at about $90 a share.
How did this company get so huge? Because it committed fraud by lying about its earnings and losses which eventually caused its stocks to severely plummet to $0.67 a share and a lot of lower-level employees pretty much lost their life savings.
Volkswagen Emissions (a.k.a. Dieselgate)
Well, this one’s a doozy.
In 2015, the United States Environmental Protection Agency discovered that Volkswagen had placed a “defeat device” in their cars sold to the U.S. that would detect when they were being lab tested for emissions and would case the vehicle to pass inspections.
United Airlines Leggingsgate
Just a couple of weeks ago, United Airlines came under fire for not allowing two young girls to board the plane because they were dressed inappropriately — they were wearing leggings.
A bystander tweeted about the incident which ended up going viral and even caught the attention of Chrissy Teigen.
The airline stood by its actions, saying that the passengers were using “buddy passes” and therefore had to abide by the airline’s dress code for its employees.
Rachel Roy (a.k.a. Becky with the good hair)
Shortly after Beyoncé dropped her latest album “Lemonade,” the beyhive assumed that the “Becky with the good hair” lyric in “Sorry” was about Rachel Roy and gathered that she was Jay-Z’s side-chick.
The reason behind the assumption? Roy posted an Instagram photo and captioned it “Good hair don’t care, but we will take good lighting, for selfies, or self truths, always. live in the light #nodramaqueens.”
Turns out, Roy wasn’t Becky. Actually, no one was Becky.
Trump University
The President’s for-profit-college (if you can even really call it a college) was in legal trouble after it was sued for defrauding customers.
Trump University was advertised as a way for students to learn Trump’s business practices for investing in the real estate market, but none of the teachers were personally picked by the business mogul and some had actually gone bankrupt before.
It was reported that the university and its instructors were trained to just sell “expensive generic seminars.”
Trump ended up paying a $25 million settlement.
Save Darfur
Quick, someone tell me where Darfur is.
In 2004, the Save Darfur Coalition was created to raise awareness about the Sudanese government’s human rights violations in the country’s western region of Darfur.
The government was forcing non-Arab tribes in Darfur away through terrible acts like murder, rape and pillaging.
The campaign went viral and caught many people’s attention and it was all for a good cause.
P.S. The war in Darfur is still going on today.
