A Guitar Gets Broken And Social Media Claims Victory

If you are reading this, then you probably already know the story of Dave Carroll, a Canadian singer / songwriter that went from being a noted musician, to an overnight sensation earlier this week.  Mr. Carroll got his guitar broken it would seem by United Airlines, and upon trying to get them to pay for it, embarked on a customer service nightmare trip that many of us are all too familiar with.

You can see the video (over 2 million hits on YouTube in only 5 days) he made after finally getting fed up with the whole thing by clicking here.  You can also read his account of exactly what happened on his blog.

I’ve personally watched the video a bunch of times, and not only do I empathize with his plight, I like the song too!  Everything about it screams honesty, talent, fun and of course, a little revenge sprinkled in.  I like it because it reminds me of something I might do if I had his talent.  In fact, I did do something like it on a smaller scale.

He has been on every radio program, TV network, even on CNN hailed as the man that stood up for all of us when it comes to how those damn baggage handlers abuse our luggage.  That combined with the coverage on Twitter, FaceBook and other social media sites has brought United Airlines to issue an apology, to start throwing money at the problem and basically begging for all this to stop.  Unfortunately for United, Mr. Carroll has promised that there are still two more songs coming about the incident.

But this is where I begin to become concerned.  If you read his blog post where he documents what happened, there is a glaring problem.  There is no way to prove that United really did break his guitar.  In fact, there was nearly an entire day between when Mr. Carroll saw his guitar being thrown around by the baggage handlers on the tarmac, and when he finally opened the case to find it broken.  You can read this at his blog where he himself spells it out.

“When I got to Omaha it was around 12:30 am. The plane was late arriving and there were no employees visible. Although I was told later that it wouldn’t have mattered, I should have taken my hard case out of the padded protective exterior case to examine the guitar at the airport but I didn’t. The guitar case looked ok and we were tired, went to the hotel and then to sleep for our early morning pick-up by the tour managers the next day. When they picked us up in the early morning we would not be back in Omaha for seven days. It was later that day at sound check that I discovered that the base of my Taylor had been smashed.”

Does United Really Break Guitars?

Is there a pimply-faced hotel kid laughing his butt off right now because HE is actually the one that broke it?  Did one of his band mates accidently drop it on the way to get a cab?  Did a cabbie drop it?  Did it get caught in an elevator?  What about the stage crew at the event the following day, did they drop his guitar and were too scared to admit it?  I could go on and on with the possibilities, and maybe there is more to the story that could refute those possibilities, but so far, I’ve not heard anything that would.

So social media got a big fat juicy steak on Monday.  So big, meaty and delicious that social media is still winding down the feeding frenzy almost a week later, and social media has been told that soon, there will be another banquet served up by Mr. Carroll in the form of not one, but two more songs.  And so far, there is NO PROOF that the company that is now paying dearly with its reputation actually committed the crime.

Yeah, I know, they saw the handlers throwing the guitars.  I know it seems open and shut, and I’d probably think the same thing Mr. Carroll did.  I’m also pretty sure that Mr. Carroll did not imagine just how much attention his video would get.  Finally, I have no reason to doubt his honesty.

However, there was simply too much time between the baggage throwing event, and discovery of the damage to say for sure that United did the dirty deed.  In the mean time, social media has landed squarely in Mr. Carroll’s court, and looks like it plans to stay there, and United Airlines is embroiled in PR whirlwind it cannot possibly control.  I’ve even seen comments on YouTube about Mr. Carroll’s video where people are stating that they are cancelling their tickets on United over this.

I’ll tell you what, if you owned the company that was the target of a PR disaster like the one that United is currently experiencing, you’d feel differently about it.  You’d probably offer to pay for the guitar repair now, donate the $ to charity, anything to get it to just stop, all the while biting your tongue to avoid saying out loud, “How do we KNOW for SURE that it’s really our fault anyway?”

Is this really a victory for social media like so many are claiming it is, or is it an example of how colossally social media can FAIL?