"Three weeks ago, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum shared an unusual tweet: a cartoon image of himself with his arm draped around a giant, anthropomorphized lump of coal. This piece of coal has big googly eyes and a smudge of a nose, and is wearing a safety vest and a hard hat. He is, frankly, adorable-and he has a name: Coalie."
"When Coalie first appeared on the internet, he went viral-ridiculed on social media, in newsletters, and even on late night talk shows. And that's because this big-eyed, cute piece of coal was widely understood to be coal propaganda, a tool to soften the coal industry's image."
"But the truth about Coalie is more complicated. His origins tell a story about what it's like for federal employees to try to do their work while navigating the Trump administration's agenda. Coalie may be widely seen as a mascot for coal mining, but that's not what he was made for."
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum posted a cartoon of himself hugging an anthropomorphized lump of coal named Coalie. Coalie is depicted with googly eyes, a smudge of a nose, a safety vest, and a hard hat. The image went viral and drew ridicule on social media, newsletters, and late-night shows because many people interpreted Coalie as coal-industry propaganda meant to soften coal's image. The origins of Coalie are more complicated and reflect the challenges federal employees faced while performing work amid the Trump administration's policy agenda. Simone Randolph is Director of Communications for OSMRE. Sara Eckert is formerly of OSMRE. Nitish Pahwa is a Slate staff writer. Leah Stokes researches climate and energy policy at the University of California, Santa Barbara and co-hosts the podcast A Matter of Degrees.
Read at Slate Magazine
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]