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Bowling Green Owns Toledo After Shrek Mascot Hoax Backfires

By Sam Allard on Wed, Apr 25, 2018 at 3:19 pm

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It appears as though the University Of Toledo has deleted its promise to change its mascot to Shrek if it got 500K retweets. Was getting roughly 1,000 retweets a minute towards the end. pic.twitter.com/fqrQPUItkv
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) April 24, 2018

The University of Toledo deleted the above tweet (visible in the Darren Rovell screenshot) yesterday, which announced that the MAC school would officially change its mascot to the Dreamworks animated character Shrek if the tweet eclipsed 500,000 retweets.

As the tweet amassed close to 100,000 retweets, generating approximately 1,000 per minute near the end of its short life, the university wiped it.

Shortly thereafter, in a PR maneuver, the university attempted to blame the "tongue-in-cheek" hoax on its current mascot, Rocky the Rocket.

Darn it! Rocky got jealous about the possibility of being replaced, and deleted the tweet! pic.twitter.com/gF6g9whisS
— The University of Toledo (@UToledo) April 24, 2018

Toledo's closest geographic MAC opponent, the University of Bowling Green, chided the Rockets for the blunder.

Hey @UToledo we have too much pride to EVER sell out our mascots for a few retweets. #BGFalconPride #bgsu @BGSUBirds pic.twitter.com/g8Dplym9u4
— BGSU (@bgsu) April 24, 2018

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About The Author

Sam Allard

Sam Allard is the Senior Writer at Scene, in which capacity he covers politics and power and writes about movies when time permits. He's a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and the NEOMFA at Cleveland State. Prior to joining Scene, he was encamped in Sarajevo, Bosnia, on an...

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