Government agencies delving into a little bit of humor on their social media accounts may be surprising, but it’s only a natural progression because these kinds of platforms are supposed to be fun.

While surprising to others, it is nothing new to Bored Panda readers, because we already covered what funny posts the Official Oklahoma Department Of Wildlife Conservation and National Park Service share. This time it’s the Washington State Dept. of Natural Resources that is entertaining us.

More info: Twitter

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Image credits: waDNR

The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) was founded in 1957 in order “to manage state trust lands for the people of Washington.” The Department overlooks 5.6 million acres of forest, range, agricultural, aquatic, and commercial lands.

Its primary mission is to “Manage, sustain, and protect the health and productivity of Washington’s lands and waters to meet the needs of present and future generations.” One of the ways to do so is to educate people, but knowing that people don’t like paragraphs of safety precautions, the organization thought that it’s best to adapt their language to their audience if they want to get their point across.

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Image credits: waDNR

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Image credits: waDNR

That is why if you go to DNR’s Twitter, you will find some funny posts telling you what to do and not to do in forests as well as giving you knowledge in that small Twitter format. They are just as funny on Instagram, sharing what type of mushroom you are based on your zodiac sign.

However, it wasn’t like this from the start. The Twitter page was created in 2009 and the social media team, including Mary Watkins and Rachel Terlep, took a risk for the first time in August of 2021 with a tweet saying “As temperatures rise, remember to treat hydration like you'd treat dating: Don't wait until you're thirsty.”

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Rachel Terlep told King 5 that there was a bit of deliberation whether they should post the tweet, “We were like, 'Should we do it, should we not do it?’” As it is evident from the tweets, they changed their approach to their posts and noticed that it piqued people’s interest.

The social media manager said, “I've never expected people to be this excited about their state agency, their state natural resources agency. We're talking about things like geologic hazards, forestry, and wildfire safety. The funny parts are great, but when people take those actionable items and apply it to their lives, so they learn something, that's the most rewarding part.”

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Rachel explained to Sea Today that they use this kind of language that includes jokes, funny posts about astrology and associations with bad relationships because they feel they “have to speak in the language that people are used to seeing their messages in.”

If they posted funny dog videos and memes unrelated to what they do and then squeezed in relevant information in the standard format, Rachel believes that “those tweets that are competing for attention, people are going to look right over them.” So they needed to combine the two.

Mary adds that “humor really sticks with people. Like if you see a funny post about recreation and then you’re hiking, and you pass a bag of dog poop on the trail, you might think of that funny post that we made about the starving trash cans and pick it up. I think that humor is a really great, subtle way to remind people of the important messages that we need to tell.”

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The posts are funny not only because they are unexpected for a government agency, but they are actually genuinely funny. It might be due to the fact that Mary and Rachel often get ideas for a post randomly. Mary says, “I find inspiration just while I’m scrolling on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook. But it will also hit me when I’m doing something random like exercising, or when I’m hanging out with my kids. And I just think, oh, this could be a catchy Instagram post or this could be funny on Twitter.”

Rachel explains that there are even more people involved in the process because there are a lot of fields to cover, like wildfire, geologic hazards, forestry and others. Some ideas are born in brainstorming sessions, so it’s not always random.

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Image credits: waDNR

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You will also notice that when a tweet gets a lot of attention and people raise questions, the Twitter account will respond with more information in all seriousness. Rachel and Mary told The Urbanist that they want to show that the Twitter account is managed by people and that it is an actual means to get official information.

The social media specialist noticed that both humor and this kind of engagement from their side increased the engagement from people and their proof is that “Every once in a while we’ll slip our job opening link, you know, at the bottom of a Twitter thread or something, and it’s pretty bonkers the kind of engagement it gets.”

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One of their most popular tweets is the screenshot of an empty playlist titled “Songs people on the trail want to hear from your Bluetooth speaker.” It has over 160k likes. A tweet that has not that many likes but was seen by 1 million people actually throws shade on Leonardo DiCaprio’s dating tendencies. A tweet about firefighters being influencers making forests stop being on fire reached even over 8 million people, so it’s safe to say that the team is doing a great job.

The account now has over 134k followers but we expect the number to grow. Will you follow DNR for their genius sense of humor? What do you think about government agencies loosening up their presentation on social media? Let us know what you think and don’t forget to upvote the tweets that made you laugh the most.