#AskThicke

Overview

#AskThicke is a hahstag introduced by VH1 in order to solicit questions for a Q&A they planned to conduct with singer Robin Thicke. The hashtag was quickly overtaken by Twitter users mocking and criticizing Thicke and his most popular song ‘Blurred Lines.’

Background

On June 30th, 2014, VH1 sent out a tweet^[2] asking Twitter users to tweet their question for singer Robin Thicke using the hashtag #AskThicke in preparation for a Q&A which VH1 would hold with the singer on July 1st, at 1:30 PM EST. In less than 24 hours the tweet gained over 200 retweets.

Notable Developments

The Twitter hashtag was soon being used by Twitter users to accuse Thicke of creating misogynistic lyrics and behaving in a creepy maner in his public attempts to win back his estranged wife, Paula Patton. On July 1st, Glamour^[6] published a post titled “Robin Thicke’s Twitter Takeover was a BAD idea,” which pointed out the Twitter hashtag was being used to criticize Thicke and included some examples. Several other sites published roundups of tweets using the hashtag to criticize Thicke that day including Jezebel^[3] and The Huffington Post.^[4] Within 24 hours the hashtag^[5] was tweeted out over 67,000 times.

VH1 Q&A

On July 1st, VH1 held their Q&A with Thicke on Twitter, opening with a question of their own asking:

“There has been a lot of controversy around your song “Blurred Lines” and new album, “Paula,” how do you respond? #AskThicke"

Thicke replied with his first tweet of the Q&A:

Thicke answered questions submitted through the hashtag which did not mock him, or mocked him in a superficial way. When a Twitter user pointed out the Thicke critics using the hashtag he responded, “I’m a big boy. I can handle it.” He answered 12 questions over the course of 30 minutes before signing off.