In February 2021, an internal whistleblower leaked photos of an online seminar platform provided to corporate workers. The slide in question presented bullet points advising viewers to "be less oppressive," "be less arrogant," and "try to be less white." The backlash was instantaneous. Conservative commentators, consumer groups, and retail shareholders criticized the soft drink maker for adopting polarizing rhetoric under the banner of inclusion.
The real-world slide deck belonged to Robin DiAngelo's seminar hosted on LinkedIn Learning. Coca-Cola maintained an enterprise subscription that gave employees access to thousands of off-the-shelf development courses. The course sat quietly inside that vast library. Once the internal screenshots broke into political talk shows and mainstream news, visual creators on internet forums recognized an opening to exaggerate the corporate misstep. Within days, satirists and agitators used 3D rendering software to map the polarizing text onto an all-white version of the signature Coke can, launching the viral can hoax across Twitter and Facebook.
