http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/Mashable/~3/VbpGXNhFjkg/: “ 
The man behind @BPGlobalPR has finally come out of the shadows — at least part of the way. After about a week of masquerading as “Terry,” a bumbling BP PR man, “Leroy Stick” has written a blog post on Street Giant explaining his reasoning for launching the satirical Twitter feed.The other week, a Twitter account burst on the scene that took BP to task for the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as the company’s PR efforts. The man behind it chose to remain obfuscated, responding to all of our inquiries in character. Well, now we have some more clues as to his identity.In the post, he refers to himself as “Leroy Stick” — a name we’re pretty sure is a farce (even though he appears to have a Facebook profile). From the post:
“When I was growing up, there was a dog that lived on my block named Leroy. Leroy was a big dog with a disdain for leashes and a thirst for blood. He made a habit of running around our block attacking anything he saw, biting my dad and my dogs basically whenever he had the chance. He chased me a few times, but I always escaped because I was/am an amazing tree climber.Anyhoos, after Leroy’s second or third attack on my dogs, it became clear that the police and Leroy’s owner weren’t going to do anything to stop him, so my dad took matters into his own hands and came up with a brilliant invention: the Leroy stick.”
Uh-huh… Names aside — we e-mailed “Stick” and asked for another interview — it appears as though Stick works for, or has some other affiliation with, Street Giant, where the blog post appears. He’s selling “BP Cares” T-shirts via the site to benefit healthygulf.org. (He’s raised $10,000 so far).Stick, however, did come out and tell the Internet why he started the account:
“I started @BPGlobalPR, because the oil spill had been going on for almost a month and all BP had to offer were bullshit PR statements. No solutions, no urgency, no sincerity, no nothing. That’s why I decided to relate to the public for them. I started off just making jokes at their expense with a few friends, but now it has turned into something of a movement.”
He also offered some thoughts as to why it’s taken off (a question we asked last week): “Why has this caught on? I think it’s because people can smell the bullshit and sometimes laughing at it feels better than getting angry or depressed over it.”Perhaps the most interesting part of the post is where Stick takes BP to task over the concept of “brand image” (something companies like Nestle are all to familiar with):
“I’ve read a bunch of articles and blogs about this whole situation by publicists and marketing folk wondering what BP should do to save their brand from @BPGlobalPR. First of all, who cares? Second of all, what kind of business are you in? I’m trashing a company that is literally trashing the ocean, and these idiots are trying to figure out how to protect that company?So what is the point of all this? The point is, FORGET YOUR BRAND. You don’t own it because it is literally nothing. You can spend all sorts of time and money trying to manufacture public opinion, but ultimately, that’s up to the public, now isn’t it??”
Stick raises an interesting point. Although businesses and organizations can take ownership of their image via social media — hello, Hugo Chavez — the ability for the average Joe to speak out is growing stronger (it helps, however, when said Joe has access to an established audience — like Street Giant’s). Sometimes that voice manages to drown out the official jabber.You can read Stick’s entire statement here. What do you think of his sentiments?
