Washington Post employees rallied to save a crab. We named her Old Bae. Now we mourn.
Old Bae’s life was meant to be short. She was purchased to die.
And yet, she persisted.
In a span of six hours, when she was first introduced to The Washington Post newsroom in a Slack channel Tuesday afternoon, the blue crab from the Chesapeake Bay evolved from being a mere crustacean into an immortal.
On Tuesday, a Post food editor wrote in the channel that a live crab was available in The Washington Post’s in-house test kitchen, known as the Food Lab. The crab had been purchased, along with five others — all females, according to their purveyor — for a photo shoot for an upcoming spring issue of the paper’s Food section.
Whether this blue crab became a pet or a meal was up to the person who took it. Yet there was little debate among this group of normally hungry employees: Most in the group wanted the crab to live.
The #leftovers Slack channel quickly mobilized to humanize the crab, much to the chagrin of some who wanted to eat her. It didn’t take long for a name to chosen. A pro-eating colleague mentioned Old Bay, a blend of spices and herbs produced in the Chesapeake Bay region and originally meant to season crab.
Why not Old Bae, another suggested? It was a perfect play on words melding the seasoning brand and “bae,” a slang term of endearment that stands for “before anyone else” and typically refers to a significant other or love interest. And thus the crab became a beloved pet.
The hashtags #LetHerLive, #ShePersisted and #FreeOldBae were wielded in her honor. A GoFundMe campaign, to raise money to purchase a tank, was discussed.
But where would Old Bae go? How would she survive? “The lord works in mysterious ways,” one colleague said in Slack as the channel’s participants put their heads together to help Old Bae find a forever home.
And indeed, our wishes were answered. It was revealed that a Post deputy design director, Katie Parker, had a pet crab that had recently died. Which meant she had an empty tank at home, just waiting for an occupant. Perhaps she would take Old Bae.
The room exploded in applause as Parker joined the room and took in the intensity of the crab fan base. Suspense built as she headed to the Food Lab to meet Old Bae. When, minutes later, Parker announced that a match had been made, the channel couldn’t have been happier.
It felt like fate: Here was a crab purchased to become an ingredient, and here was a human who had a crab-size hole in her heart. Perhaps a short life wasn’t Old Bae’s destiny after all.
But sometimes things are too good to be true. While everyone was rejoicing, all was not well with Old Bae. Suddenly, Parker was pinging the Slack channel with the grim news that the blue crab had stopped moving.
This set off a flurry of questions. How long can crabs live out of water? How do they survive different temperatures? Can they go into shock or go dormant because of stress? No one really had a clue.
In other words, if you want to buy a blue crab with the intention of keeping it as a pet, handling the crab carefully is vital, as is storing it properly until it can be introduced to an aquarium. This generally does not involve refrigeration.
But Old Bae wasn’t bought to be a pet, and she might have been doomed from the start.
Five hours after the crab’s introduction to the newsroom, Parker officially announced her passing.
Soon she had been immortalized in a new, animated Slack emoji — a crab with one waving arm — and on a photoshopped image of her with angel wings. Some even changed their Slack profile image to her picture. A balloon artist in the newsroom made an Old Bae of balloons.
On Thursday, the story of Old Bae reached the top of the paper’s masthead. During a town hall meeting with staff, Executive Editor Marty Baron read aloud three employee-submitted questions. The last was this: “Can we have a moment of silence for #OldBae, our short-lived newsroom crab mascot?” Baron mispronounced it “Old Bye,” but no matter. He obliged.
“Now, I think it’s only appropriate that the newsroom should have a mascot that’s a crab,” Baron said. “Um, but I don’t know what mascot this is, so, I never heard of this mascot. But I think it’s fine if we have a moment of silence, so here we go.”
He paused. “That’s it.”
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