A senior Washington DC transit official is receiving hate for posting a photo of a subway passenger “spreading” – sharing a photo of the man’s crotch to get his point across.
Now criticized as a ‘creeper’ for the pointed message, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority experience director Sarah Meyer, 39, has since apologized – saying the comment was made in jest.
After failing as the New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA) first ‘customer chief’, Meyer, a Manhattan native, admitted she made a mistake when she posted the image on Tuesday – less than 24 hours after tweeting it.
Now deleted, the image showed a man – presumably on his DC subway commute – in a shirt, tie and khakis seated while occupying two seats.
His legs wide apart – hence the ‘manspreading’ claim – the man’s face cannot be seen in the photo, which Meyer captioned: ‘DC do we really need to campaign of manspreading on our trains?!I thought we were over that.
A senior Washington, D.C. transit official who resigned from the MTA last year is receiving hate for posting a photo of a ‘spreading’ subway rider – and sharing a photo of the man’s crotch to get his message across
Now criticized as a ‘creeper’ for the pointed message, Sarah Meyer, 39, director of experience for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, has apologized – saying the comment was made in jest
Within minutes, several commenters were quick to point out how invasive and creepy the photo was, and served as a poor substitute for the actual work the municipality’s taxpayers expected of her.
“Why are you taking pictures of a stranger’s crotch and posting them on social media?” sniped conservative commentator Matt Walsh, a Daily Wire columnist.
Others pointed out that the number of serious assaults at DC Metro facilities nearly doubled from 2018 to 2022, with robberies and robberies also on the rise since 2020.
Someone else simply remarked, “Metro’s ‘Head of Experience’ is a creeper.”
Meanwhile, some have admitted that the unidentified garter belt is taking up more space than is socially acceptable.
‘I do think, however, that the man could have let someone sit in the other chair rather than taking the whole seat,’ wrote one social media user who is part of this selected minority, while others pointed to a woman seemingly forced to stand next to the semi-occupied seat.
The mass of negative attention, however, far outweighed the positive – and soon saw the tweet scrubbed, not by Meyer, but by Twitter itself.
Moderators wrote that the post had been taken down because it violated the website’s rules – without specifying which one.
Hours later, Meyer — who was taking in an annual salary of $221,517 when she resigned from the MTA last summer — apologized for the job.
“It was a joke, but I understand how it might have offended some,” Meyer tweeted Tuesday after facing a storm of backlash less than three months into his new gig.
She added: “I will do better and stay focused on what matters, better service, communications and direction.”
“It was a joke, but I understand how it might have offended some,” Meyer tweeted on Tuesday – after facing a storm of backlash less than three months after the start of his new plum gig
Sarah Meyer, a former executive of the MTA and a posh New York City marketing firm, was named Director of Experience for the Washington, D.C. Metro, in one of her Twitter photos, posted September 23, 2022, while stranded on Amtrak in New York.
Within minutes, several commenters were quick to point out how invasive and creepy the photo was, and served as a poor substitute for the actual work the municipality’s taxpayers expected of her.
Meyer’s ‘man spreading’ claim was reminiscent of his checkered past in New York – where the term is widely used by internet savvy to aptly describe when men spread their legs when they’re sitting in public transport.
His four-year tenure as the MTA’s first-ever Chief Customer Officer was riddled with similar attempts to sway the public with internet lingo on social media, instead of tackling the crime problem prevalent in the city on its metro system.
Poached from a swanky marketing firm where she served as senior vice president, the then 34-year-old was instantly paid over $200,000 – a pay cut from her job in the industry private, officials noted at the time.
Less than a year into her tenure, the pandemic hit – seeing her come under fire for failing to address cyclists’ concerns about crime and homelessness.
Instead, the authority employee scrambled to increase his social media presence, posting humorous messages about OMNY and other new technologies as the historic subway system languished.
Eventually — before admitting to The New York Times that the city’s problems of homelessness, drug addiction, poverty and crime were unsolvable — she quit, assuming her current role more than a year later.
“I came to this job with this privileged view that I could fix anything,” Meyer told The Times in October, when she worked part-time in communications. “I left that role recognizing that I couldn’t fix everything, and that was a huge mindset shift for me.”
Her mother, fellow Manhattanite Jean Miller, added the backlash she felt for not responding to the city’s pandemic-era woes: ‘The times she got discouraged never had to do with the critical but with the distress that we see in the subways. ‘
DailyMail.com has contacted the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority for comment.
