The New York Botanical Garden probably didn’t expect its educational content about plants to spark a full-blown thirst fest.
The massive botanical garden and research center located in the Bronx, New York City, was forced to shut down its comments section on certain posts.
The move came after viewers couldn’t stop talking about one very photogenic horticulturist, and many believed the comments were crossing a line.
Highlights
- The New York Botanical Garden had to turn off comments after viewers flooded posts with “thirsty” remarks about a staff member.
- Horticulturist Chris Elliott became an unexpected internet heartthrob.
- But many felt the attention was crossing the line.
- NYBG seemed to have disabled comments on videos featuring Elliot.
The New York Botanical Garden probably didn’t expect its education content about plants to spark a full-blown thirst fest
Image credits: New York Botanical Garden
The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) is a 250-acre botanical garden and research center, known for its lush and diverse plant collection.
It is seen as a museum of plants and is one of the world’s leading institutions for plant science and conservation.
NYBG is fairly active on social media, but they began noticing something different when horticulturist Chris Elliott started popping up on their feed.
Image credits: nybg
NYBG said Elliott was working as their Associate Curator, and he was featured in some of their videos, teaching people simple and interesting things about plants and flowers.
Netizens shared their thirsty takes on the horticulturist instead of commenting on the innocent plant content he was sharing.
NYBG said Chris Elliott was working as their Associate Curator, and he seen teaching interesting things about plants on social media
Image credits: nybg
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In one video marking the first day of spring, NYBG took Elliott’s help to talk about some of their favorite flowers, the snowdrops, blooming all about the 250-acre area.
Elliott explained how these “winter-to-spring beauties” survive snow and ice and “share their bright blooms before any other flower.”
Image credits: treehousetropicals
Another video in April saw Elliott give a “bloom alert,” telling viewers that this was the best time to catch sight of cherry blossoms in their gardens.
“Hear from Chris Elliott, Assistant Curator, and make time this weekend to see this spectacle of blooms at NYBG,” the caption said. “Clouds of pink and white flowers fill trees in spots throughout the Garden, and create an unmissable moment in Cherry Valley, but will only last for a couple more weeks.”
“There’s no way that man is single,” one commented online
Netizens flocked to the comments section, but their remarks barely had anything to do with botany.
“Well, hello Chris,” one said, while another wrote, “Babe, YOU’RE one of my favorite orchids.”
“There’s no way that man is single,” one said.
Another chimed in, saying, “Pretty men with pretty flowers, as the lord intended.”
“Well, he is packing a pollinator,” one brazenly said.
Image credits: nybg
NYBG seemed to have disabled the option to comment on Elliot’s videos on social media.
One X user, named Heidi N. Moore, took note of the thirsty comments and shared screenshots of the comments and said, “One of the New York Botanical Garden’s employees was getting s*xually harassed so much every time he showed up on their account that the NYBG has turned off comments.”
The living museum seemed to have disabled the option to comment on Elliot’s videos on social media
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The appalled X user said they scrolled through the living museum’s account and went all the way back to 2022.
Heidi said she had seen Elliott in previous posts but claimed NYBG “took him out of the thumbnails.”
X user Heidi N. Moore claimed she didn't find any comments talking about the flowers in Elliot's videos
Image credits: nybg
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The X user also said she was going to post about this last year after seeing “hundreds of thirsty comments on every video” that seemed “so out of hand.”
The comments were “mostly polite, but some not, and NONE about actual flowers he was talking about,” she said.
Image credits: nybg
In light of NYBG disabling the comments, Heidi said she was glad they decided to discourage the thirst creeping into their social media and also keep Elliot, who was just trying to do his job, safe.
Heidi said it was good to see workplaces take their employees’ online safety more seriously, since the typical reaction to such situations is to just “laugh [it] off.”
“If someone is doing their job and gets objectified, that's an unsafe work situation that could cause competent employees to hide,” Heidi said
“The internet is an unhinged place. If someone is specifically posting a thirst trap, then it's all good clean fun,” she wrote.
“But if someone is doing their job and gets objectified, that's an unsafe work situation that could cause competent employees to hide,” she commented. “The same goes for comments that criticize the looks of employees as well. Employee safety has to come first online.”
“People should earn their way into having social media,” one commented online
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