Last year, the Tony The Tiger Twitter account became an object of adoration for online furries, who saw in the Frosted Flakes mascot a strong yet gentle lover. So creeped out was Tony by this that he went and blocked a wave of the fuzzy deviants en masse. Once news got out, however, no block button could contain the perversion that followed. Tony’s mentions are regularly an orgiastic wasteland of blush-worthy exclamations.
That’s why it was so curious this past week when 30-year-old Twitter user Alex Boivin had his account suspended for doing what so many others on the site do every day: sexually harass Tony The Tiger. And, comparatively at least, Boivin’s claim that he’d “fuck that tiger” isn’t nearly as graphic as the rest of the post’s replies.
Seriously, just look at what these people are saying.
Hilariously, Boivin didn’t even know that Tony was regularly subjected to such naughty talk. He told Buzzfeed, “The Tony tweet popped into my feed as a promoted tweet, I have a special loathing of these things. If you give me an opportunity to interact with a #brand that’s popping into my timeline without my consent, I’m gonna get weird,” he said.
As Buzzfeed points out, Boivin even relates the incident to the criticism Twitter has received for its refusal to monitor hate speech. “America has this back-ass-wards Calvinist streak where calling for the expulsion and genocide of non-white races is just a difference of opinion,” he said. “But making a sex joke at a corporate mascot who paid money to advertise to you is cause for censure.”
Let’s hope it was worth it, Tony, because something tells us those mentions are about to get a whole lot filthier.