The Week on TwitterTopical

The Week On Twitter: Llamas and Madonna (27 Feb)

By Louisa McGrath

This week Twitter was more bizarre than usual with a number of surprising trends and Tweets that had people talking, and even arguing.

 

Women make a stand at this year’s Oscars #Oscars2015

As expected, the week kicked off with plenty of Tweets about the 87th Academy Awards, which were aired in Ireland at midnight on Sunday.

Oscar host Neil Patrick Harris trended on the night, with a positive reaction to his opening musical number with Jack Black and Anna Kendrick. However, as the awards continued Tweets got more critical of his hosting abilities.

Half the Tweets on the night were about the awards and the films, the other half were about the red carpet and celebrity fashion. #AskHerMore was trending on the night with an aim to encourage the presenters and journalists at the red carpet to ask female celebrities important questions, as well as the usual questions about their dresses. This has been popping up on Twitter at a number of recent award ceremonies and has been supported by a number of celebrities. Reese Witherspoon spoke about it on the red carpet and promoted #AskHerMore on Instagram, while Lena Dunham tweeted her support.

Patricia Arquette also made a stand for women in the speech she made after winning the award for best supporting actress for her role in Boyhood. She spoke about gender inequality in wages across all industries, but focused on the film industry. She received plenty of applause at the awards ceremony, but had to endure a surprising amount of backlash on Twitter and in the media generally.

Dakota Johnson of 50 Shades of Grey, Lady Gaga and Jennifer Lopez were the most popular people on Twitter during the awards. Lady Gaga received a lot of attention for one of her classic looks and her Sound of Music performance. To the disappointment of many Tweeters there was no Twitter creaking celebrity selfie this year. But Jennifer Lopez took the most popular selfies of the night, one of her and Meryl Streep and one of her being photo bombed by Jennifer Aniston.

 

Just because Madonna has a Cape doesn’t mean she can fly #Madonna

On Wednesday night the Brit Awards, as well as many of those in attendance, were trending. But Ed Sheeran, George Ezra, 1 Direction, Sam Smith and Royal Blood all had the spotlight stolen away from them by the Queen of Pop, Madonna. As everybody who hasn’t been living under a rock knows by now, she fell backwards down the stairs during her performance at the Brit Awards because of a wardrobe malfunction with her Armani cape.

The live fall resulted in Tweets praising the 56-year old, as well as abusing her. Because she continued her performance, she has been accused of it all being a publicity stunt. On tomorrow night’s The Jonathan Ross Show she is due to deny this rumour and discuss the whiplash that resulted from her fall. The incident resulted in 58,000 Tweets featuring her name Madonna, but more amusingly 33,200 Tweeters were calling her Madge.

https://twitter.com/fabwba/status/570710675741413376

Llamas on the Loose! #LlamaDrama

On Thursday night, a number of unusual things were happening on Twitter. Iggy Azalea v. Papa Johns was trending after the rapper ordered a pizza from Papa John’s, after which the delivery boy proceeded to give her phone number to anyone who wanted it.

Tweeters everywhere were also mourning Lupita Nyong’s white Oscar dress after it was revealed that it had been stolen. Meanwhile, Kanye West took to Twitter to publicly apologise to Beck and Bruno Mars. Having ruined Beck’s Grammy speech and harshly criticising Bruno Mars, these apologies show a new side of Kanye. But because this is so unlike him, his fans should probably be worried. Hopefully it’s probably just a midlife crisis.

In Ireland television show Don’t Tell the Bride was proving very popular among Twitter users. Unfortunately, I did not see the show myself, but I’m betting it was entertaining.

Last night in the US, #LlamaDrama was trending after two llamas escaped from a petting zoo in Arizona. The two llamas, one black and one white, were causing havoc by darting through traffic and evading the authorities. So, in the most stereotypical move imaginable, the local news station aired the low speed llama chase live on television. After about an hour the two animals were caught. The white llama was captured using a lasso and, miraculously, the black one was caught without being injured by the police.

 

Is it white and gold, or black and blue? #TheDress

Today’s biggest trend has been about a dress. Yes, Twitter users are arguing over the colour of a two-toned dress, which is some sort of optical illusion. Celebrities, such as Kim Kardashian and Taylor Swift, have joined in the Twitter debate on whether the dress is white and gold, or black and blue.

 

Until next week, I’ll leave you with CNN’s news report on the #LlamaDrama!

 

 

Featured photo by Johann “nojhan” Dréo.

Louisa McGrath 31 posts 0 comments

Louisa is a freelance writer based in Dublin. Having graduated from DIT, she is now scrambling to leave student life behind and establish herself in the world of journalism. Tweeting from @LouisaMcGrath

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