Giraffe Bread

Social media has the ability to make everyone a celebrity or an expert. Through the different social media, personal family stories that would previously only be posted to the refrigerator, are now posted across the internet. This happened to one family in England when Lily, their three-year-old daughter, wrote a letter to Sainsbury’s, a supermarket chain in the UK, suggesting that they change the name of their Tiger Bread to Giraffe Bread because it resembled a giraffe more than a tiger.

Lily then received a letter back calling her idea brilliant, telling her a little about the Tiger Bread, and giving her a gift card.

Lily's mother posted the letters on her blog. The images of the letters and the idea of changing the name of the bread went viral until the supermarket chain caved into pressure from social media and changed the name to Giraffe Bread. 

Because of social media the power of being a news-maker and a decision-maker has been shifted; now any person can attract attention to their thoughts. Many of the barriers that used to be in place when producing information have been lifted with the number of different outlets for content on the internet. There are new obstacles because of the internet such as the intention for the content posted. Lily's mother may or may not have meant for her daughter's letter to become an internet sensation and change the product name, however, Anthony Weiner was not looking for internet fame when his misused his twitter account posting lewd pictures that led to his resignation. Whether or not the attention is wanted or welcome you can publish what you want on the internet and social media is connecting you to a number of different networks and people and distributing your information to a wider audience. At least for Lily, the name of her bread fits with the animal that it resembles.