Chicken restaurant trains an actual chicken to run its Twitter account - Action News
Home WebMail Saturday, November 23, 2024, 12:47 PM | Calgary | -12.1°C | Regions Advertise Login | Our platform is in maintenance mode. Some URLs may not be available. |
News

Chicken restaurant trains an actual chicken to run its Twitter account

If Betty the chicken knows that she's helping a restaurant fry and sell her friends, she certainly doesn't show it!

Betty the chicken likely has no idea she's promoting the consumption of her own species

Betty the chicken tweeted her first full word on Thursday, Oct. 15. It was "bum." (Chicken Treat/YouTube)

An enterprising chicken is breakingdown boundaries for hens across the world right nowby going online toprovethat she's more than a pieceof meat.

She's also good at Twitter.

Betty is the four-year-old domestic fowl and social media marketing professional behind#ChickenTweet a hashtag created by Australian fast food chain Chicken Treatfor the exclusive purpose of documenting her recent work.

While undoubtedly young for the job, and perhaps less qualified than others in her field, Betty has been doing a bang-up job ofattracting people to the@ChickenTreatTwitter account since taking it over last week.

"Betty the chicken is the real deal," raves CNN of her tweets. "Unlike those imposters, who rely on human interlocutors to actually, you know, tweet, Betty's down there in Australia doing the hard stuff herself."

While Betty doesn't actuallyspeak English (or likely even understand what she's doing,) she does write her own tweets.

According to a video published by Chicken Treat about their Betty-centric marketing campaign last week, the plucky youngster has a computer in her coop that she can use to post "whatever's on her mind."

What she appears to be using itfor, however, is to peck at its keyboard when it's covered in feed and to walk over it while completing her regular chickenly duties.

She will continue to do this until she successfully sends out a five-letter-long word in English, according to Chicken Treat. This, according to the company, will earn her a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records as "the first chicken to tweet."

So far, she's only managed to type one actual word amongstthe thousands of random characters she's published, and it was two letters short of what's needed for the record.

Thatword, tweeted on Thursday, was "bum."

Many online appear to findBetty's nonsensical updates delightful. Some animal rights activists, however, have takenissue with her employer's social media strategy.

"Chickens don't tweet they live tortured lives," reads an image one critic tweeted at the company in response to an update about Betty.

Chicken Treat,which operates 70 stores across Western Australia, replied saying that the campaign "has been approved by the RSPCA & abides by all standards regarding animal welfare."

In response to another Twitter user who called them "animal abusers," the company said"We are happy to assure everyone that Betty is well looked after and is very happy at her home at Chicken Tweet HQ."

More problematic to some people is the dark irony behind having a chicken run a Twitter account that promotes the consumption of her own species.

As TIME Magazine puts it, "Betty is unwittingly working to promote a firm that exists only to execute and barbecue her brethren for human consumption."

Betty may or may not have spoken out on the issue herself using the @ChickenTreat Twitter feed. We don't speakchicken, so it's hard to say.

Whatever the hen is tweeting, however, it appears as though she's making an impact among her fellow fowl as well as some fans: