John Oliver On Last Week Tonight To Corporations: Stay Out Of Our Twitter Conversations

Last week was a tough week for brands on Twitter — what with DiGiorno Pizza accidentally invading the #WhyIStayed hashtag conversation about domestic violence and the usual misguided 9-11 anniversary tweets — and if you thought comedian John Oliver would pass on the opportunity to “join the conversation” … well you’d be wrong.

Oliver closed his HBO show “Last Week Tonight” last night with a passionate rant against corporations on Twitter.

“Look companies your silence is never going to be controversial,” Oliver said. “No one will ever go, ‘I can’t believe it. Skittles didn’t tweet about 9-11 yesterday, they must support terrorism. I’m never eating them again.’

“That’s what corporations don’t understand. Twitter is a cocktail party where friends and strangers can meet to chat. Corporations just don’t belong there. It’s like having Tony the Tiger burst into a conversation and saying ‘They’re Greeeaaat! Right guys? Whatever you were talking about…’”

So Oliver and his writers came up with a hashtag — a 140-character hashtag so no other message could be appended — aimed at brands. It’s basically a pledge of allegiance to Oliver’s absolutist stand: #WeUnderstandThatAsCorporateEntitiesOurPresenceInCertainDiscussionsIsNotAlwaysRequired SoWeWillStriveToLimitOurActivitiesToJustSellingYouShit.

If any verified company wants to use in our hashtag, we will gladly retweet you. It’s 140 characters, so you can’t screw it up. Here goes…

— Last Week Tonight (@LastWeekTonight) September 15, 2014

#WeUnderstandThatAsCorporateEntitiesOurPresenceInCertainDiscussionsIsNotAlwaysRequired
SoWeWillStriveToLimitOurActivitiesToJustSellingYouShit

— Last Week Tonight (@LastWeekTonight) September 15, 2014

Perhaps scared off by the scatalogical profanity, not many major brands have answered Oliver’s challenge. One exception: Newcastle Brown Ale, which tweeted the long hashtag within 15 minutes of Last Week Tonight’s tweet, followed by this:

And by ‘shit’ we mean smooth, delicious Newcastle Brown Ale. @iamjohnoliver @lastweektonight

— Newcastle Brown Ale (@Newcastle) September 15, 2014

The clip hasn’t been posted by Last Week Tonight yet. When that happens, we’ll update and share it here. Meanwhile, you can view the clip at this link.