- The Washington Times - Tuesday, August 8, 2017

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines’ recently released #PrideAmsterdam campaign has been mocked online for days because it inadvertently sends the wrong message.

“It doesn’t matter who you click with. Happy #PrideAmsterdam,” the company told its 2.32 million Twitter followers over the weekend with a picture of incompatible seat belts attached. Although the airlines sought to promote tolerance, users noted the dangerous futility of coupling two “male” or “female” seat belt parts together.

Some of over 2,500 comments consolidated Monday by the social media curation website Twitchy:

  • “When your attempt at #VirtueSignalling uses a metaphor that doesn’t exactly help your argument.”
  • “Nice metaphor: Two of those combinations are functionally useless.”
  • “Only one of these might save you in crash.”
  • “Did no one realize that only the hetero seat belt actually works?”

“If you use the top two seatbelts and the plane has turbulence, you could die,” added conservative author Ben Shapiro.

KLM has remained silent on the online reaction to its ill conceived campaign.

• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.

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