Mike Jerugim

When I reposted the You Tube video of your racist webcams, I think it was generally understood by myself and others, including those who originally made the video I imagine, that there was a sense of non-seriousness and fun associated with the clip. Clearly a computer can’t be racist, or at the very least it seems incredibly unlikely that the engineers responsible for the mishap were in any way intentional in their actions. However, once you unleashed your PR damage control squad on my tweet linking to the post, the fun and games quickly became a bit too real. What was once a funny, and ultimately forgettable video about a computer bug (one that I’m fairly sure is an easy fix), had suddenly become a big-HP-brother-is-watching scenario. Here is the tweet in question:

@meeglosh Thanks for flagging. I work for HP and I can assure you we are looking into the matter: http://bit.ly/6oZOnK

Really? Did someone ask you to send out these buzz kills, or did you take this mission upon yourself? Either way, I was much more willing to forget about it before you slightly freaked me out. Now I hope to keep bringing it up from time to time, just to keep the flame alive. How’s that for PR?