Posting sponsored content on social media has become a popular way for reality stars to supplement their TV incomes.
When the partnership is a good match, and both parties are on the same page with regard to their goals and intentions, it can lead to an arrangement that benefits not only the star, but also the star’s followers, who are, ideally, being directed toward content the star has personally approved.
Unfortunately, things very rarely work out that way, as evidenced by the current debacle surrounding Maci Bookout’s Twitter account.
More often, the stars share links without actually reading the stories themselves, which can create major problems.
Earlier this week, Maci linked to a Celebuzz article about a Teen Mom star who had suffered a miscarriage.
The article was about 16 and Pregnant star Nikkole Paulun, who sadly lost her pregnancy recently.
But the photo used to promote the article was of Kailyn Lowry of Teen Mom 2 fame.
Lowry is pregnant with her fourth child, and she’s due to give birth sometime before the end of July.
She’s a much more established star than Paulun, as well as a castmate of Bookout’s.
In other words, it was no accident that Kail’s photo was chosen for the article’s header image.
As The Ashley’s Reality Roundup reports, Teen Mom stars generally don’t post the sponsored content themselves, as an automated service does it for them.
But they do retain the right to remove any post that they find objectionable.
And at the end of the day, it’s their personal social media page, which means they’re still personally responsible for all the content that appears on it.
That means Maci is 100 percent on the hook for spreading — albeit unintentionally — the rumor that Kailyn suffered a miscarriage.
And not surprisingly, she received a ton of flak from her followers as a result.
“Literally the worst clickbate. I thought more of you, Maci,” one person wrote in response to Bookout’s tweet.
“These types of things shouldn’t be joked about, and using Kail’s picture here is gross.”
“This is disgusting that y’all used Kail’s picture making it seem like she is the one who lost her baby and she didn’t,” another person echoed.
“Nikkole Paulun is the one who lost her baby. Shame on any teen mom’s who allowed whomever to post this article!”
“I’d get a new publicist,” a third user chimed in.
Maci has yet to respond to the criticism, and surprisingly, she hasn’t even deleted the tweet.
Perhaps she feels the damage has been done, or maybe she stands by her tweet on the grounds that there are no factually inaccurate claims made in the article itself.
Whatever the case, it’s not hard to see how this tweet might have rubbed some fans the wrong way.
