Farmers destroy rare toy on live TV to fight back against online trolls

Two Australian farmers have destroyed a rare plastic toy live on television in a bid to counter the behaviour of online trolls.

The toy in question is an ooshie, created by Woolworths as a tie into the new version of The Lion King. Australians have been very excited by the item and they’re selling for absurd amounts on eBay and the like.

Woolworths has been forced to put out a statement on the issue:

We take the selling of The Lion King Ooshies and merchandise on eBay very seriously and we are making every effort to investigate this.

There are, apparently, only 100 furry ooshies in existence and they’ve become so sought after that numerous online sellers have received death threats.

Melissa Portingale and Stephen Black are hay growers who live in Victoria, an area where drought has left many farmers without adequate water. Having procured a rare ooshie, the pair posted it for sale on Facebook and received a torrent of abuse for trying to profit from the toy.

At this point the farmers decided to make a political point and wrote on Facebook:

I’m wanting to trade it for irrigation water to use on our dying farm due to the mismanagement from our government of the Murray-Darling Basin.

The internet, as is it does, continued to behave in an unedifying manner so they decided to simply destroy the toy live on TV with Stephen commenting:

We’re taking a stand against this online bullying, it’s just not on. If this is the moment I need to do something, then I need to do it. I don’t want to be standing here on national TV, but I do want the message to get out there.

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