How Domino's responded to prank video

Benny Evangelista:

The saga of the prank Domino's video could be a case study of how fast-moving social media can both giveth and taketh away.

It began April 13, when five YouTube clips showing a Domino's Pizza employee performing unsavory acts with food began spreading on the video-sharing site.

One clip shows a male worker, identified in the amateur video only as Michael, sticking cheese up his nose and adding it to a sandwich. In another, Michael sneezes into a cheese steak sandwich "to be served to some unlucky customer that's in need of some snot," said the video's shooter and narrator, who identified herself as Kristy. In a third, Michael rubs himself with a sponge, then uses it to clean a pan.

Predictably, the vast YouTube community was revulsed, yet watched anyway. Within a day, the clips had been viewed about 200,000 times, while anti-Domino's comments began to spread on Twitter and other social media sources.