A high-ranking DC transit official is being hated for posting a photo of a subway driver “manspreading” — sharing the photo of the man’s crotch to get her point across.
The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s 39-year-old Chief Experience Officer Sarah Meyer, who is now slammed as a “creeper” for the pointy post, has since apologized — claiming the comment was made in jest.
Fresh off a failed stint as the New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA) first “chief customer officer,” Meyer, a Manhattan native, admitted she made a mistake by posting the image Tuesday — less than 24 hours after tweeting.
Now removed, the image showed a man — presumably on his commute on the DC Metro — in a shirt, tie and khakis sitting while taking up two seats.
His legs spread wide — hence the “manspreading” claim — the man’s face can’t be seen in the photo, which Meyer captioned, “DC, do we really need to do a manspreading campaign on our trains?!” I thought we were up here.’
A senior Washington, D.C. transportation official who resigned from the MTA last year is being hated for posting a photo of a subway driver doing “manspreading” — and sharing a photo of the man’s crotch to get her point across
Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Chief Experience Officer Sarah Meyer, 39, is now slammed as a “creeper” for the point post and has since apologized — claiming the comment was made in jest
Within minutes, several commenters were quick to point out how the photo was intrusive, creepy, and served as a poor substitute for the actual work that council taxpayers expect from her.
“Why do you take pictures of a stranger’s crotch and post it on social media?” snapped Conservative commentator Matt Walsh, a columnist at the Daily Wire.
Others pointed out that the number of aggravated assaults at DC Metro facilities nearly doubled between 2018 and 2022, with robberies and robberies also increasing since 2020.
Someone else simply commented, “Metro’s chief experience officer is a creeper.”
Some, meanwhile, admitted that the unidentified belt hanger took up more space than was socially acceptable.
“However, I feel like the man could have had someone sit in the other seat instead of taking up the entire seat,” wrote one social media user who is part of that select minority, while others pointed to a woman who apparently forced to stand beside her in the half-occupied chair.
However, the mass of negative attention far outweighed the positive – and soon the tweet was deleted, not by Meyer, but by Twitter itself.
Moderators wrote that the post was removed because it violated the website’s rules – without specifying which ones.
A few hours later, Meyer — who took in an annual salary of $221,517 when she resigned from the MTA last summer — apologized for the position.
“It was meant as a joke, but I understand how it may have offended some,” Meyer tweeted Tuesday after facing a storm of backlash less than three months after her new performance.
She added, “I will do better and continue to focus on what matters, better service, communication and signage.”
“It was meant as a joke, but I understand how it may have offended some,” Meyer tweeted Tuesday — after experiencing a storm of backlash less than three months after her new appearance
A former executive of the MTA and swanky NYC marketing firm Sarah Meyer was named Chief Experience Officer for the Washington, D.C., Metro, in one of her Twitter photos, posted on Sept. 23, 2022, when she was stuck on New York’s Amtrak.
Within minutes, several commenters were quick to point out how the photo was intrusive, creepy, and served as a poor substitute for the actual work that council taxpayers expect from her
Meyer’s “manspreading” claim harkens back to her checkered past in New York City – where the term is widely used by Internet nerds to aptly describe when men spread their legs while riding public transportation.
Her four-year tenure as the MTA’s first-ever chief customer officer was riddled with similar attempts to influence the public with social media Internet slang, rather than addressing the city’s prevalent crime problem in the subway system.
The then 34-year-old was poached at a swanky marketing firm where she was a senior vice president and immediately paid a salary of more than $200,000 — a pay cut from her work in the private sector, officials noted at the time.
Less than a year into her tenure, the pandemic hit — she came under fire for failing to address riders’ concerns about crime and homelessness.
Instead, the authority worker pursued a greater social media presence, joking about OMNY and other new technologies as the historic subway system languished.
Finally — before admitting to the New York Times that the city’s homelessness, drug addiction, poverty and crime problems were unsolvable — she resigned and assumed her current role more than a year later.
“I came into this position with the privileged idea that I could solve anything,” Meyer told the Times in October, when she worked part-time in communications. “I left this role recognizing that I couldn’t fix everything, and that was a huge change of mind for me.”
Her mother, fellow Manhattanite Jean Miller, added of the backlash she felt for not addressing the city’s pandemic-era misery: “The times she became discouraged were never about criticism, but the suffering that you see in the subway. ‘
DailyMail.com has contacted the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority for comment.