The Week on TwitterTopical

The Week on Twitter: Martin Shkreli, Conor McGregor, & Star Wars

By Jade Hayden

This week, Twitter watched as Conor McGregor became the UFC featherweight champion, went to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and applauded as Turing Pharmaceutical CEO Martin Shkreli got arrested for fraud. We also saw Tim Peake fly off to space, and celebrated International Tea Day.

#MartinShkreli arrested for securities fraud

Earlier this year, ‘boy genius’ entrepreneur Martin Shkreli founded Turing Pharmaceuticals and pissed a lot of people off. He started the business after being forced to resign as CEO of Retrophin – another pharmaceutical company that sued and subsequently replaced Shkreli, claiming that he had engaged in “stock trading irregularities.” Like Retrophin, Turing Pharmaceuticals planned to purchase the rights to obsolete drugs and “repurpose” them to develop new drugs. And also to make lots and lots of cash.

In August, Shkreli’s company bought Daraprim – a drug used to treat sufferers of HIV. The purchase allowed the company to increase the price of one Daraprim pill from $13.50 to $750. It didn’t take long for everybody to turn against Shkreli, condemn his actions, and denounce him as the asshole he is. So, understandably, Twitter was only absolutely delighted this week when ‘Pharma Bro’ was arrested by the FBI for fraud.

Shkreli was charged with securities fraud and wire fraud conspiracy, and was accused of using Retrophin “like a personal piggy bank” to pay off investors. He was released on bail on Friday morning, before resigning as CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals.

Upon hearing the news, Twitter rejoiced and made lots and lots of expensive-drug-related jokes. Shkreli then tweeted, thanking everybody for their support during this difficult time. His charges carry a maximum sentence of 20 years imprisonment.

#ConorMcGregor wins #UFC194 featherweight title #TheNotoriousMMA 

Last Saturday, many people made the conscious decision to stay awake until 5am to watch Conor McGregor fight Jose Aldo in the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. And 13 seconds later, all of those people went to bed very, very happy.

If you happened to be residing beneath a rock this past week, you can watch McGregor knock out Aldo in record time here. And if haven’t been residing beneath a rock, but would still like to watch McGregor knock out Aldo in record time because it was deadly, you can also do so here.

https://twitter.com/btsportufc/status/675917768361816064?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Securing the fastest UFC title win ever, McGregor said that he felt for Aldo, but that “Nobody can take that left-hand shot.” Following his win, about 98% of the country took to Twitter to celebrate The Notorious’s new title, drink lots of cans in his honour, and complain about how hungover they all were the next day.

https://twitter.com/KatieTaylor/status/675994668002361344

#ThingsThatLastLongerThanAldo even trended for a while thanks to the Lad Bible, who decided that it would definitely be a good idea to allow their readership to command a hashtag. Although thousands of tweets simply declared ‘me in bed lol,’ there were at least three others that deserve a spot on The Week on Twitter for being almost funny.

https://twitter.com/1Rosswoods/status/675933291464249344

Almost.

 #StarWarsTheForceAwakens premiers and everyone loses their shit

This week, the new Star Wars film came out and everyone went absolutely mental. There were midnight screenings, people dressed up as things, the Spire became a lightsaber, and anybody who posted spoilers was viciously attacked.

According to some fancy movie industry analyst guys, The Force Awakens is set to smash box office opening records with an opening day of $125m, and an estimated all-time opening of $255m. To put that in perspective, it took Avatar a whole 12 days to make $250m, and Jurassic World 5 days to cross the same mark.

Since its release, the movie has been trending worldwide. It’ll probably continue to trend worldwide for about a year or so because people are really excited about it. Here are some of their tweets.

#TimPeake heads off to space #ISS

On Tuesday, British astronaut Tim Peake left Earth for the first time and arrived at the International Space Station. The ex-army helicopter pilot is the second person from the UK to ever go into space, after 27 year old Helen Sharman made the trip to the Russian Space Station in 1991.

A few days after he had settled in to his new home, Peake gave a press conference in which he declared that life in space was way better than he had imagined, but that the first 24 hours had been “pretty rough.” He also did a back flip and everybody got really excited.

Peake will spend six months in ISS, conducting a series of experiments examining how the human body functions in space.

https://twitter.com/British_First/status/676743561065443329

Twitter celebrates #InternationalTeaDay 

December 15th marks the annual celebration of International Tea Day – a day of glory, wonder, joy, and drinking a load of tea, probably. The first Tea Day was celebrated in India in 2005, and aimed to promote fair trade for workers and growers across the globe.

This year, Twitter took advantage of December 15th to post pictures of tea (so, so many instagrams), to share tea making tips (water before milk, always), and to upload pictures of Morrissey talking about how much he enjoys tea (a lot, apparently).

Featured image via thesource.com

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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