I was sorry to hear that katie zhu was yet another person to fall victim to this. It seems Snapchat’s made a habit out of crossing lines like this.

Still, every time I start to think this is an over-the-line PM team out of control problem at Snapchat, I read something like Cameron Wiese’s “My Email Exchange With Evan Spiegel,” and it starts to feel increasingly like a PR gimmick in decidedly poor taste. Borrowing from artists, taking advantage of stereotypes… This feels just a little too much like the old “do blatantly offensive things to generate earned media so we can quickly release an apology once earned media mentions exceed X $$” play.

Lazy advertising in an increasingly competitive space isn’t a good enough excuse to be a bad person.