'Don't Worry Darling' Drama Inspires Wildlife Agency's Twitter Takedown

Oklahoma is famous for its natural attractions, and now, the state's wildlife conservation department is going viral for its use of ongoing Don't Worry Darling drama to take down a Twitter troll.

The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation slammed a social media user on Tuesday with a barrage of photos from Don't Worry Darling's Venice Film Festival premiere.

The department likes to have fun on Twitter, but not everyone appreciates the lighthearted approach. On Tuesday, its social media team posted a screenshot of a direct message from a disgruntled Twitter user.

"I can't believe my state taxes pay for u to be trashy on twitter," the screengrab read.

Next came a series of pictures featuring actor Chris Pine (note the nature-adjacent last name) rolling his eyes at a Don't Worry Darling press conference. The wildlife conservation department provided alternative text for each of the images, including one that read: "Chris Pine looks to the sky as if asking a higher power to take him far far away."

By late Wednesday morning, the tweet had received nearly 8,000 likes and 440 retweets.

The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation's social media team also used the opportunity to set the record straight about its financial support. The bulk of the department's money comes from "the sale of licenses and federal grants," it wrote.

"We are a non appropriated state agency. So wildlife conservation is funded by those who love the outdoors and support us. (The sass is free tho)," the department continued, along with a short clip of a laughing Florence Pugh, who stars in Don't Worry Darling, walking by with a drink in hand.

Many Twitter users praised the organization, which counts some 81,200 Twitter followers, for its creative use of social media.

"Makes me wanna go buy an Oklahoma fishing license even though I don't live there anymore," one user wrote.

Even the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District weighed in on the troll's trashy-on-Twitter post, writing: "don't worry darling, at least the website is free."

Don't Worry Darling is generating buzz for its on-screen sex scenes and off-screen drama. Director Olivia Wilde is dating the film's male lead, pop star Harry Styles, and is rumored to have locked horns with Pugh and actor Shia LeBeouf. Wilde claimed in Variety that she'd fired LeBeouf from the production, which he's publicly denied.

This isn't the first time that Oklahoma's wildlife conservation team has clapped back at Twitter trolls, Sarah Southerland—the department's social media coordinator—told Newsweek. Over time, they realized that using a more "formal government voice" wasn't effective and changed the approach.

Southerland aims to shoot down myths about Oklahomans, whom she said are sometimes unfairly painted as "uneducated and terrible."

"You've seen the stereotypes of somebody with no teeth, and just hee-hawing around kind of a thing," she continued.

Southerland added that she's a "Harry Styles stan," and that the multihyphenate actor is the subject of an inside joke among the social media team. He also crops up in the department's quizzes, which are regularly posted to Twitter.

"Harry Styles always makes an appearance in the quizzes no matter what, and is always three or four answers or he is in the quiz in some way," she said. "We have people who...have a lot of notoriety in their scientific community who still have to answer a Harry Styles reference."