In almost any PR or social media marketing course, you will be told in detail and with examples about the importance of the correct tone of voice in posts – after all, for instance, the accounts of some local store or pub and of a federal organization are completely different things. However, there are no rules without exceptions…

Recently, the National Park Service, on its X (former Twitter) account, decided to do a seemingly good deed – to tell tourists about ‘bear safety tips,’ and make a joke along the way. The end result was a completely fiery thread… however, let’s see for ourselves what they came up with.

More info: X

National Park Service recently published some ‘bear safety tips’ for tourists in a rather unusual way

Image credits: Rey Emsen (not the actual photo)

The NPS urged tourists not to sacrifice their friends if they have encountered a bear somewhere in the woods

So, in the original tweet, National Park Service once again reminded users about safety rules for tourists in forests and national parks in case they encounter a bear, but at the same time accompanied this really wholesome information with another variation of a fairly old joke.

Well, you remember that in order to run away from a bear, you don’t need to run faster than the bear at all – just outrunning your friend is enough. And so, NPS sincerely urged tourists not to sacrifice their friend if they both encounter a bear – even if you suddenly realize that your friendship is coming to an end.

And literally within a few hours, a completely viral thread was formed, where netizens were sophisticated in their wit about the original post – and the NPS employee responsible for the organization’s social networks gave equally witty answers.

Image credits: NatlParkService

Image credits: PNW Production (not the actual photo)

Image credits: NatlParkService

People came to the resulting thread with some witty questions related this topic

So, what questions in connection with the topic of the thread interested folks most of all?

• What to do if the slower friend is you?
• Doesn’t a bear deserve a little snack as a treat?
• Okay, but what about your spouse (of course, the author of the question asked not for themselves, but for a friend)?
• What if my friend is Usain Bolt? Should I not go into the woods at all?

Image credits: mana5280 (not the actual photo)

By the way, bears can run way faster than even the fastest human on this planet

Well, if the first three questions are more likely to fall into the category of rhetorical, then to the fourth we can try to give a logically sound answer – fortunately, we have all the numbers on hand. So, the world speed record among sprinters, held by Usain Bolt, is 9.58 seconds for 100 meters.

Thus, during his record-breaking run, the great Jamaican reached a speed of approximately 27.7 mph. At the same time, for example, Wilderness Times offers us a comparative table of the speed of different types of bears and, according to this table, the maximum speed that both a Kodiak and Grizzly bear can reach is 40 mph. Sorry, Mr. Bolt…

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Overall people in the comments enjoyed the thread massively

Getting back to our topic, users generally enjoyed the thread. “When did the NPS get a sense of humor? Loving it!” one of the commenters ponders. Another commenter shares a useful hack – you should only be friends with people who can run at approximately your pace. “So we can both run and let God sort things out,” this netizen concludes quite fatalistically.

Be that as it may, such a presentation of undoubtedly useful information definitely attracted more people’s attention than if it was an ordinary tweet with advice. We can only hope that netizens didn’t get too carried away with the jokes and still read these bear safety tips. Otherwise, a situation may arise like in this post of ours, about an overly entitled and rude tourist… By the way, if you also have a similar story under your belt, please feel free to share it in the comments below.

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