It can be embarrassing when grownups try to act cool—especially when they're government technocrat types. So when Mexico's Minister of Agriculture tried to set the internet on fire this week by launching the “Guacamole Challenge,” he ended up with some avocado-themed social media backlash on his face.
The goal, at it's core, is a good one. It's an effort to promote eating habits and consumption of Mexican avocados. But the "challenge" element is more tedious than exciting: Dare your friends to prepare a delicious guac dish.
Even with the collective strength of President Enrique Peña Nieto's Cabinet—including the ministers of foreign affairs, health, and tourism—the internet avocado party seems to be falling short of Ice Bucket fame.
Predictably, Mexican social media has mocked the government effort as lame and awkward.
Our political class is perversely obsessed with involuntary humor.
Forgive us God.
Will Mexican officials really achieve the guacamole challenge? Because they have failed at the other challenges the country faces.
I want to be a Mexican official to make events like the guacamole challenge and not have to work those days.
Members of the cabinet got creative. They invented the guacamole challenge. They ruined the internet and guacamole.