The Week on TwitterTopical

The Week On Twitter: Vincent Browne, Hozier, Harrison Ford and more

By Louisa McGrath

The music world was very prominent on Twitter this week. Otherwise there were no celebrity falls to take all of the Twitter limelight, just the glamorous Vincent Browne calling people whimps and telling others to shut up.

 

Remembering Leonard Nimoy #LeonardNimoy #LLAP #SpockingFives

Since it was confirmed last Friday that Leonard Nimoy had passed away, a number of Trekky terms were trending throughout the world. The 83-year-old died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which he had been diagnosed with last year. The beloved actor was buried on Sunday and a huge number of celebrities, politicians and fans have been paying tribute to him over Twitter ever since. Among them were William Shatner, Ben Stiller, Barack Obama, Elijah Wood, Chris Hadfield and Bruno Mars. Even Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams paid tribute in his own way:

Many people were touched by the last thing that Leonard Nimoy wrote on Twitter before his passing. He must have been reflecting on life at the time, because it is a surprisingly poetic and fitting last Tweet.

In Canada, people’s grief was expressed in a particularly unusual way as fans began to turn the politician featured on the $5 note into Spock by drawing on him. Fans created their own Spock and posted them on Twitter with the tag #SpockingFives. The term continued to trend throughout the week, reaching its height when the Bank of Canada publicly requested that people stop “spocking fives” and deemed it inappropriate, but not illegal…

 

This week’s television tweets #MooneBoy #VinB

To many people’s delight, Monday night saw the return of Moone Boy to Sky1 with its third season. Starring and co-written by Chris O’Dowd, the comedy programme set in Roscommon in the 1990s has proven popular and has also won an Emmy. It was also voted best comedy series at the British Comedy Awards, with many Irish people pointing out that it is an Irish comedy. The Irish Daily Star reported that Peter McDonald, the Irish actor who plays Martin Moone’s father on the show, hit out out the show’s tag as a British comedy, saying that it is completely Irish.

This all saw Moone Boy trending into Tuesday, but I expect it will pop up again tonight as The Independent has just announced that an American version of the nostalgic comedy is set to be made and Chris O’Dowd isn’t too happy about it.

TV3’s Vincent Browne often trends in Ireland during the broadcast of his current affairs programme, but this week he trended for a slightly different reason while he made headlines as well. Earlier in the week solicitor Brian O’Donnell and his wife refused to leave their home in Killiney after the bank repossessed it, this led to a media circus outside their mansion. On Tuesday, video footage emerged of Vincent Browne entering the property and taking a part in a stand off with the New Land League’s Jerry Beades, who was trying to stop entry. Vincent is heard saying that it is bank property and encourages the other journalists to follow him, but when everyone else fails to join him he calls them “whimps”!

Later on that night, Vincent continued to trend after another stand off between the two men took place on his live show. The video, which went viral, shows Jerry Beades describing the Killiney mansion as “a bog-standard house”, two minutes of arguing ensued as the two men tried to talk over each other. Vincent Browne eventually exclaimed “Just shut up”, which was repeated at least four times, and “Just leave”. To many Twitter users’ amusement, he concluded by saying “After the break, we’ll get rid of him”.

 

Magically Musical Tweets #EP2015 #Thanks Zane #AskHozier

On Wednesday #EP2015 and Electric Picnic were trending after this year’s lineup for the festival was officially announced. Florence and the Machine is headlining, along with Underworld and a host of other artists. The list is short, but many more acts are still to be announced.

On Thursday the 10th Meteor Awards were trending and so were The Gloaming, who scooped the top award, #meteorchoice, for best album. Meanwhile in the UK #ThanksZane was trending as DJ Zane Lowe did his last ever slot on BBC Radio 1 after 12 years with the radio station. Many artists and fans said goodbye to him through Twitter including the Arctic Monkeys and Foals, which he helped put on the map, as well as all out super bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers and Foo Fighters.

Irish singer and songwriter, Hozier, also made waves on the Tweet machine last night when he offered to answer fans questions. This is becoming common PR for celebrities, particularly those in the US. Comedian Aziz Ansari is doing it as I write this. Hozier was asked a range of weird, wonderful and pointless questions. He even wrote a tweet to excuse one of his fans from school.

Throughout the night, Twitter fans used the process to discover important facts about Hozier, for example:

  • He is not the tallest person in his family
  • He has a flip phone
  • He would love to learn how to play the cello and the harp
  • He occasionally does some Victorian English style rapping (whatever that is…)
  • His favourite book is 1984 by George Orwell
  • If he wasn’t a musician he would probably be a psychologist or an anthropologist

https://twitter.com/Yourfavzombie/status/573663423868846080

 

Less Magically Musical Tweets??#5ONTHEWALL #LAGirlMusicVideo

Throughout the week there were lots of terms trending on Twitter that I didn’t understand. With a little research I discovered that most of these were related to bands that I had never head of. On Tuesday #5ONTHEWALL was trending in Ireland, America and the UK. This hashtag was some sort of publicity stunt by Australian band, 5 Seconds of Summer, in which they announced this secretive new term, but never explained what it was. This had the effect of driving their teenage fans to insanity.

https://twitter.com/400luxash/status/572850975909801984

https://twitter.com/400luxash/status/572853460762140673

#LaGirlMusicVideo was trending on Thursday and with a little investigation I discovered it was a song by the The Janoskians, an Australian “comedy group” who just seem like any other boy band to me. They released a new love song with a video where they run around in their underwear and then in the nip, which just seemed like a horribly perverted take on Blink182’s ‘All the Small Things’.

These trends, among others, made me feel old and completely out of touch (even though I’m on the good side of 20). But then I saw this and I felt better…

https://twitter.com/ItsMazz/status/572110543093411841

 

A Clear and Present Danger #HarrisonFord

Finally, Harrison Ford began trending last night after a plane his was flying crashed on a golf course in Los Angeles. The 72-year-old actor, who is known for his love of flying, survived the crash and current tweets seem to suggest that he will be okay. We should have known a little plane crash wouldn’t phase him.

Photo: Official Hozier Twitter Page (@Hozier)

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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