The history books are filled with colossal blunders and embarrassing missteps that could’ve been avoided if someone had simply said, “Hey guys, maybe we, like, shouldn’t?” The offices of popular photo app Snapchat could have used one of those recently.
As Consequence of Sound reports, the company apparently decided it would be good fun to celebrate 420 – the national holiday of the world’s pothead community. That on its own is not necessarily a bad idea. After all, 420 was trending all over the web.
They decided to celebrate the special occasion with one of their famous filters, which again, is not necessarily a bad idea. But it’s when we tell you that they also decided to ‘pay homage’ to reggae legend and marijuana advocate Bob Marley with their filter that things take a turn.
Instead of, say, adding a cartoon joint to users’ Snapchat photos or surrounding their in thick plumes of weed smoke, Snapchat issued a filter that adorned the user with a Jamaican-style beanie, dreadlocks, and changed their skin tone to match Marley’s.
Yeah, they created a blackface filter. Naturally, people aren’t happy about it, but Snapchat are insisting the Marley filter was simply a way of showing their “appreciation for Bob Marley and his music” and was created “in partnership with the Bob Marley Estate”.
The lesson you should take away from this is pretty clear: if you feel like honouring a late Jamaican music legend and think the best way to do this would be to create a photo filter that basically lets you don blackface, like, maybe you shouldn’t.
Welp! Snapchat’s 420 filter celebrates Bob Marley with blackface https://t.co/R5eA0gFK9c pic.twitter.com/zHrTuJr1ht
— WIRED (@WIRED) April 20, 2016
Oh my god oh my god oh my god snapchat put a "Bob Marley" filter and it's… bad and in poor taste, to say the least pic.twitter.com/syAHGXp3f6
— Alp Ozcelik (@alplicable) April 20, 2016
Snapchat's Bob Marley 4/20 filter criticized for adding blackface: https://t.co/d7r23xIiOA pic.twitter.com/kCX77SHjMP
— ABC News (@ABC) April 20, 2016
Snapchat is facing backlash after introducing this Bob Marley lens https://t.co/elTTXZzG98 pic.twitter.com/Va32xY0YPY
— CNN (@CNN) April 20, 2016