The Week on TwitterTopical

The Week on Twitter: The Rose of Tralee, Ashley Madison, & Calvin Harris

By Jade Hayden

This week, Twitter saw the outing of 32 million adulterers, watched in grief-stricken awe as Zayn Malik and Calvin Harris had a little feud, and witnessed the bizarre spectacle that was The Rose of Tralee.

Millions of cheaters outed in #AshleyMadison hacking scandal

A few months ago, hacker group ‘Impact Team’ threatened to release the details of all the men, women, and everyone in between who frequently used dating website, AshleyMadison.com. But Ashley Madison is not your regular, run-of-the-mill dating service – it’s a site that allows its exclusively non-single members to have (semi-) secret relationships with other exclusively non-single members, because according to the company’s tagline: “Life is short. Have an affair.”

Except, as it turns out, those relationships weren’t that secret at all. Impact Team managed to hack the site’s database anyway, and released the details to the world just the other day. Understandably, whoever owns Ashley Madison wasn’t too happy about the breach, and condemned Impact Team for imposing “a personal notion of virtue on all of society.”

But for every person who’s started questioning the morals of the website’s users, there are several more wondering how the (supposedly legit) details of 32 million users were recovered in the first place. One website – that has since been shut down by Ashley Madison – stated that the site “…should be embarrassed for (its) trainwreck of a database.” It would seem that despite their focus on secret, illicit affairs, Ashley Madison hadn’t quite grasped the concept of online privacy themselves.

https://twitter.com/ashleymadison/status/225653319782236160

Twitter goes mad for the #RoseOfTralee

I have to be honest… I didn’t watch The Rose of Tralee. I wasn’t busy, I wasn’t preoccupied, I literally wasn’t doing anything. I just didn’t watch it. But what I did do, was sit on Twitter and retweet a lot of tweets about it – pretending that I, too, was watching, so everyone would think I was cool and current but in an ironic way. I like to think that that worked.

Apparently the Meath rose won. Congratulations Meath rose. Apparently a lot of other stuff happened too, including someone reciting all 32 counties in 8 seconds, Dáithí Ó Sé having a beard (?), and many poems being said.

Here’s a load of tweets to make up for the fact that I haven’t got a clue what happened.

Everyone celebrates #WorldHumanitarianDay #ShareHumanity

This year, Wednesday August 19th marked the twelfth anniversary of the Canal Hotel bombing in Iraq. 22 people were killed in the initial attack, including Iraq’s United Nations’ Special Representative Sérgio Vieira de Mello. Now, each year, the world celebrates Humanitarian Day – to recognise the work that humanitarian personnel do, and to remember those who lost their lives fighting for the cause.

Twitter also used Wednesday as a chance to #ShareHumanity, by spreading awareness about immigration issues, the Syrian conflict, and the importance of vaccinations.

Are you #TeamZayn or #TeamCalvin? #CelebFeud #WhoCares?

Early in the week, ex-One Direction member Zayn Malik retweeted something that compared Taylor Swift’s removal of her music from Spotify, to Miley Cyrus’s claim that she didn’t care if nobody bought her albums ever again, as she had already made her money. Soon after, Calvin Harris – who has been going out with Taylor for an amount of time – went on a mad one, and told Zayn to “stay out my fuckin mentions pls.”

Honestly, the whole thing had a bit of primary school air about it… Like when someone gets into a scrap with someone else, and they have to go stand in the corner, and everyone else in the room is like “Woah, that was badass.” But really, it wasn’t badass. And everyone involved looks stupid. And you’re pissed off because it’s yard time, but nobody gets to go outside anymore. Zayn and Calvin have ruined it for everyone.

Although Calvin was quick to apologise when Zayn insisted he “calm (his) knickers before them dentures fall out,” their ‘fight’ is all anyone’s been talking about. And it’s been riveting.

Many of their tweets have since been deleted, but here are some others that sum up the situation quite nicely.

Me too, Matt Lucas. Me too.

 

Featured image via irishtimes.ie

Jade Hayden 144 posts 0 comments

Jade Hayden has an MA in journalism, a degree in English, and a house rabbit who sleeps in her bed sometimes. You'll often find her wearing glasses, fixing her fringe, and complaining about the amount of time she spends on public transport. Jade is also the editor of HeadStuff's topical section, and she'd love if you sent your submissions over to [email protected].

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