How to Rebuild Your Internet Brand After Killing a Beloved Lion

The killing of Cecil the Lion was a tragedy on multiple spectrums. We've experienced one man's choice to violate animal rights, international hunting laws, and any unspoken agreement that all living beings are part of one ecosystem. In no way can you condone or make light of the actions of a Walter James Palmer, the exotic hunter and dentist from Minnesota.

Although the scorn of the internet may feel like an inescapable hell in the moment, eventually cooler heads prevail. This means a forgiveness cycle may be highly attainable since you already captured the attention of a nation. Repairing your personal and professional brand after the internet has processed you through a hate cycle can be done if you retrace the steps of your cyberattacked journey. The content creators and content farms want you—use them to your advantage.

Dr. Walter Palmer must become a content provider.

Remorse must be authentically conveyed, but more importantly, captured in the proper digital mediums. He cannot let himself fade into Joe the Plummer obscurity. Be more than just a negative human meme. This may be the only way to salvage his career and public perception. This is how a lion killing dentist can bring himself back to life using the same internet that brought him down.

Create a moment with Jimmy Kimmel where you 'show remorse' and appeal to the spirit of forgiveness in the human heart.

Jimmy Kimmel created a highly immersive viral moment of sympathy when he showed 'human emotion' in the form of 'getting choked up' while calling the killer dentist a 'jackhole.' This is the type of empathy that is usually only displayed in real life, but takes on a deeper meaning when captured in digital video format. Kimmel and the lion backlash generated $150k in donations to WildCRU, but more importantly for content farms, millions of unique visitors who were hungry to consume content about the lion killing dentist.

To the content farms, it wasn't necessarily about the lion's life. It was about crafting meaty pieces of content that pandered to the mess of human emotions that we sort out while reading the story of Cecil.

While you may believe that the sensationalized story of the sensational act of an exotic hunting mishap would be the most compelling piece of content, a story of remorse and forgiveness may be what the American heart needs to heal. We don't want to believe we are bad American hunters. Instead, watching Walter Palmer visit Kimmel, Fallon, Ellen, and maybe even a 'humorous' show like SNL, the Daily Show, or Tosh.O could produce the inescapable wave of content we need to fully launch a forgiveness tour.

Petition the Petition.

Petitions are great headline enablers for content farms. People love reading that numbers of people are outraged, and that groups of people want the world to change. We all wish we cared about 'the issues' enough to sign petitions, even if signing an online petition is basically the same as ordering something from Amazon.com without putting in your credit card number.

The sheer number of people who participated in an online petition creates massive headlines. Furthermore, the idea that the White House is aware of change.org petitions gives citizens the idea that they have the ear of the President. From what I understand, 'the government' is a process of petitioning petitions anyways, so this might be effective for Walter Palmer.

Participate in a Reddit AMA to capture the hearts of the power-niche internet users.

From what I understand, people on Reddit are some of the most passionate internet users who think they have figured out how to have the most authentically informed internet existence. Besides giving a Caitlyn Jenner style tell-all interview to a television journalist, speaking directly with internet users on Reddit can help Palmer add another dimension of regret to his internet forgiveness journey. Though there are diminishing returns associated with Reddit AMA's as an organic/authentic internet experience, the tell-all vibes can still help to generate quality pull quotes that emote genuine remorse.

If you feel exhausted saying you are sorry, remember that it takes numerous channels to reach every single internet user who consumed content about you being a terrible person. Remember, the goal is to generate a positive headline like, "When he killed a lion, you hated him. But After He Said This, You're Gonna Wanna Marry This Tolerant Hunk."

Focus on more innovation within the dental industry.

Why does it matter that Walter Palmer practices dentistry? Does the average American have an unpleasant time at the dentist after not flossing for the past 6-12 months and being forced to come back for a filling without legitimate dental insurance coverage? Are dentists affiliated with negative American affluence like Wall Street CEOs or Koch brothers? Dentists are officially in need of a rebranding or else he might pull their potential billable hours and hourly wages downwards.

Walter Palmer must decide if it is feasible to stay in the dental industry. It will be difficult for him to be a healthcare member serving the community after killing an internationally beloved lion. He needs to come up with a new dental technology or pricing structure that makes dentists less hateable. Perhaps something as Pinteresty as sharing a DIY whitestrip recipe could make the masses happy.

Internet users love the tales of industry disruption, whether it is in the form of a bubble-building stock or longform rise-and-fall story. Anything that could reduce the amount of lifetime dental visits, make your teeth white forever, or eliminate the need for any form of dental care all together. Even though he killed a lion, he also killed the need to brush and floss. When he fully understands why Americans now hate dentists now more than ever, his mind may be free enough to disrupt the industry forever.

Do you have it in your internet heart to forgive the lion killing dentist?

This horror of this terrible story was proliferated via every possible modern medium. Content farms went to town playing up every layer of this multilayered exotic hunting story. This means Walter Palmer's journey must be a forgiveness tour like no other. Palmer can't just expect to buy 7,348 five-star Yelp ads to hope all of the bad internet users go away from his practice's reviews page. He must become a content creator whose face is as recognizable as the man with a "Make America Great Again" cap.

One of the redeeming qualities/faults of human nature is our eventual tendency to forgive. Life goes on despite moments of horror and sadness. Those who hold grudges are holding fast in a version of the past that can easily be forgotten. Maybe this is our chance to make internet nature a little bit more natural, serving as a more direct reflection of human nature's tendency to repair negative perceptions of other humans. Forgiving Cecil's killer could be the positive act the internet needs to end anguish-inspiring clickbait for good.

Do you believe in forgiveness enough to share content that undoes the tale of the Dentist who killed Cecil? We'll see.

Carles.Buzz is the fallen content farmer behind HIPSTER RUNOFF. Read more Life on the Content Farm here.