Viral Venmo guy Carson King dumped by beer maker over tweets
Social media made him a celebrity, and social media brought him down.
Ten days after a young Iowa man became the star of a feel-good viral story, Anheuser-Busch has cut ties with him over some old tweets.
Carson King, 24, rose to unlikely prominence by waving a sign on TV asking viewers to put money in his Venmo account so he could buy more Busch Light.
After strangers gave him more than $20,000, he used the attention to eventually raise more than $1 million for a children’s hospital in Iowa, buoyed by donations from Anheuser-Busch and Venmo.
On Tuesday, King was back on social media, this time with an apology for “offensive and hurtful” social media posts he had made at age 16. The same day, Anheuser-Busch said they will have “no further association” with King — whose image they had earlier put on a commemorative can, labeling him an “Iowa legend.”
The posts came to light when a Des Moines Register reporter was doing research in preparation for an interview with King. The story had not yet been published when King came forward with his apology.
“I am embarrassed and stunned to reflect on what I thought was funny when I was a 16-year-old kid and I want to sincerely apologize,” he said in a tweeted letter.
The Register came under fire from some people over the disclosure of the tweets. In a public letter, its editor addressed the discussions the staff had about “how to use this information,” which was eventually included toward the end of the profile of King. By that time, he had already gone public.
The Register said there were two tweets, both racist jokes.
Amid the furor, people began digging into past social media posts by the Register reporter, Aaron Calvin, and came up with tweets in which he used offensive language and made questionable jokes. Calvin has since locked his Twitter account, and the Register says it has begun an investigation of allegedly “inappropriate social media posts by one of our staffers.”
— Carson King (@CarsonKing2) September 25, 2019
A statement from our editor: pic.twitter.com/ZH9AhcrYbg
— Des Moines Register (@DMRegister) September 25, 2019