Yahoo Finance Lawyer’s stark $66,000 fine warning after Aussie workers go viral: 'Unsettling'
The staff have been getting threats to their safety after jumping on a viral TikTok trend.
A lawyer has warned workplaces to be careful about jumping on TikTok trends after a group of Aussie workers got caught up in a viral social media storm. tbh skincare posted a video of six employees doing a trend that involves people going around in a circle to describe yourself in a catchy way.
It sounds harmless, right? Well, the video attracted awful comments on the original post before being uploaded to X, where the sentiment ranged from misogynistic to disgusting. The company's co-founder, Rachel Wilde, told Yahoo Finance the reaction was like "nothing we have ever experienced before".
"The commentary on X is very different to the comments we typically see on viral content across TikTok and Instagram, naturally, because the audience on X is very, very different," she said.
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"It was pretty surprising to see how such an innocent trend-based video quickly racked up a huge amount of hatred and trolling in the comments.
"I still don’t understand what everyone is so upset about."
The original video has racked up more than four million views so far on TikTok. Scrolling through the near 1,000 comments, many people praised the women and said tbh skincare appears to have a great office vibe.
But jumping onto X, the mood changes very fast.
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"Organisations will have one man doing something productive then a diversity department like this dedicated to making his life complicated and painful," said one user.
"Careers for women aren't about the love or appreciation for the work, it's about the social status and girl boss points. To them, it's a larp," said another.
'Unsettling' reaction to viral video
Wilde told Yahoo Finance that when the first wave of bad comments came in, they could see the "comedy" in it all. But that didn't last long.
"The more it grew in size, the more unsettling it became knowing that the video was out there basically taking on a life of its own, totally outside of our control," she said.
"I think for me the shock came when I realised 'Gen Z boss and mini' was actually something that was trending on X.
"There were threads upon threads of commentary, you couldn’t even scroll through all of it, there was a new post appearing every five minutes."
Wilde said she has been "so proud" of the way the women have handled the situation and explained the company is "providing the appropriate support" to everyone involved.
Going viral can have huge implications
The company co-founder has revealed the "silly" TikTok clip has resulted in staff getting gross comments and even threats to their safety.
Roxanne Hart from Hart & Co Lawyers told Yahoo Finance going viral can have a big impact on a person's mental state.
"Those people, they come into their work, they've gotten all these threats on their emails and stuff," she said. "Somebody might then have anxiety every time they open their emails. They don't know what they're going to get.
"They don't know what information people have found out about them. So they have an issue with opening their inbox. So you can see how that can then spiral into a mental breakdown, anxiety attacks, an inability to literally use email."
The lawyer claimed it wouldn't be a far leap for a psychologist to call that a "workplace injury", which can result in a workplace compensation claim.
Hart said a worker could also make a personal income protection insurance claim if they have to go off work from too much stress as a result of a viral video.
The lawyer, who specialises in employment law, said workplaces also have an obligation to ensure staff aren't subjected to sexual harassment. While that is usually dealt with internally, posting content on social media can open a new can of worms because it allows people outside the company to sexually harass staff.
The maximum penalty for businesses that fail to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace is $66,000.
Hart said because this was posted by the company's account, rather than an employee's, then the workplace is responsible for any backlash. She added this situation should serve as a warning to every business about involving staff in social media posts.
Hitting back against the hate
The women involved in the original TikTok video did a follow-up post, where they joked about the awful comments people had left.
"We thought what a fun way to clap back to all the hate then to turn it into the trend itself," Wilde told Yahoo Finance.
"Thankfully this landed on the right side of TikTok and received lots of support from our existing and new-found community. At the end of the day, we’re choosing to focus on the positive comments as opposed to the negative and decided to just ride the wave and stay true to ourselves."
She added that the overnight fame has seen a huge boost to their social media followers and a jump in traffic to their website.
They've even capitalised on the moment by offering a 'Gen Z boss and a mini' bundle pack.
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