Beauty spot pressured to dam feedback after ‘sizzling’ male employee ‘sexually harassed’ by followers
The plant museum posted last month about the first day of Spring, but it wasn’t just the weather heating up as an army of online admirers flooded the declaring their love for hunky Chris Elliot
Chris Elliot has attracted hundreds of comments (Image: @nybg/Instagram)
The New York Botanical Garden has been forced to turn off the comments on its social media posts featuring a hunky worker after he was flooded with hundreds of sexualised comments from online admirers.
Posts featuring horticulturist Chris Elliott attracted thousands of interactions from lusting plant lovers who flooded the comments with crude remarks. And as the weather got hotter, so did the comments from male and female admirers.
A whistle-blower who discovered the move said: “One of the New York Botanical Garden’s employees was getting sexually harassed so much every time he showed up on their account that the NYBG has turned off comments.”
Eagle-eyed social media users spotted the museum had even removed him from thumbnails to deter the pervs online.
One user shared screenshots of the now-deleted comments, saying they had found “hundreds of thirsty remarks” in every video Chris was featured in. They added: “Mostly polite, but some not, and NONE about actual flowers he was talking about.
“I’m glad they decided to discourage this and keep him safe online by closing comments. He’s just trying to do his job.”
One of the comments read: “There is no way that man is single.”
A recent video featuring Chris was shared on the garden’s official social media accounts last Friday and generated almost 4,000 likes on Instagram in four days and over 18,000 views on TikTok.
Another clip of Chris discussing snowdrops in March received almost 7,000 likes. Some admiters even found his personal TikTok account and tried to get his attention in the comments.
One comment read: “Pretty men with pretty flowers, as the lord intended.” Another joked: “Babe, YOU’RE one of my favorite orchids.”
The whistle-blower added: “I know we laugh off this kind of thing but it would be nice to see more workplaces take their employees’ online safety a little more seriously. The internet is an unhinged place.
“If someone is specifically posting a thirst trap, then it’s all good clean fun. But if someone is doing their job and gets objectified, that’s an unsafe work situation that could cause competent employees to hide.
“The same goes for comments that criticize the looks of employees as well. Employee safety has to come first online. Comments are on for every other curator because they’re not getting unhinged sexual harassment.
“I suspect his videos required a lot of moderation/staff resources considering that their average post gets 1-20 comments and he was getting hundreds.”
For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletter by clicking here.
