Revisiting 2014 : Top 10 Social Media Highlights of the Year
Well, it was quite a year for social media. People posted close to 500 million tweets per day, Ellen clicked a selfie, Queen of England photobombed a stranger and Kim Kardashian attempted to break the internet. Needless to say, a lot went down this year.
We are listing top 10 social media highlights of the year 2014.
1. Ellen’s Oscar Selfie
If only Bradley’s arm was longer. Best photo ever. #oscars pic.twitter.com/C9U5NOtGap
— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) March 3, 2014
This picture was taken by actor Bradley Cooper and featured some of the world’s most recognised faces. The selfie clicked during this year’s Academy Awards included Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence, Brad Pitt and Kevin Spacey. It was retweeted on Twitter more than 2 million times by the time the ceremony was over, causing the microblogging website to briefly collapse.
2. Yo!
This app’s sole function was to send the user’s friends the word ‘yo’ as a text and audio notification. Since its release, Yo has been downloaded over 3 million times and has over 100 million Yo’s sent in one day. The app had managed to reached number 3 spot on the iOS App Store, but has been dropping ranks since. Yo went viral within days, causing the app to crash a number of times. Critics have shunned it as nonsensical, however, some say its simplicity is what made it super popular.
3. WhatsApp Blue Ticks Cause a Frenzy
Few months back, WhatsApp added an unnecessary feature in the form of blue check marks. These indicated that the recipient had read the message. Earlier, in the interest of privacy, WhatsApp added the choice to conceal the ‘last seen’ notification that informs the other party when that person was last available on the messaging platform. Same happened with the new ‘blue tick’ feature. The instant messaging app quickly did some damage-control and added the option to hide ‘Read Receipts’ feature.
4. Stranger Kissing
First kisses are awkward. And scary. And uncomfortable. And if you’re lucky, it can be romantic enough to make your knees wobble. Los Angeles-based filmmaker Tatia Pilieva, along with Wren Studio, created a short video by asking 20 strangers to kiss for the first time on camera. The result was a candid look at love, romance and chemistry. The sexy advert inspired plenty of parodies.
5. #AlexfromTarget
RV IF YOURE IN THE ALEX FROM TARGET FANDOM ???????????? https://t.co/n7lGnXgP5m — Alex From Target Fan (@katyswiftgrimme) November 3, 2014
An Internet meme of a young Target employee bagging items took the Web by storm. He became a viral sensation after thousands of teens tweeted a photo of him working at Target. A photo of the handsome young man, which appears to have been taken without his consent, exploded on Twitter, prompting various publications from BuzzFeed to Washington Post to cover the Internet’s latest obsession.
6. Kim Kimkardashian’s Attempt to Break the Internet
Paper magazine’s winter issue, with the cover shot of Kim Kardashian by Jean-Paul Goude, set out to #BreakTheInternet. She didn’t succeed, but she did have everyone talking about the revealing shoot.
7. CIA Joins Twitter
@CIA we are not confirming or denying this tweet, but welcome to Twitter! #FF
— FBI New York (@NewYorkFBI) June 6, 2014
The Central Intelligence Agency made its Twitter debut on 6th June with this cheeky tweet. Their first tweet was shared more than 50,000 times in its first hour.
8. Mutant Spider Dog
This ‘spider dog’ is actually just a cute little pup dressed in a spider costume. But try telling that to the poor victim of this terrifying prank. This Polish prank video starring a “mutant giant spider-dog” was the top trending video this year, according to YouTube, which uses its own methodology blending views, comments, shares and other activity to come up with its annual rundown.
9. PewDiePie – King of Youtube
PewDiePie, a 25-year-old Swedish called Felix Kjellberg whose channel is the most viewed on YouTube (with 32 million subscribers, and 4.6 million Twitter followers,) rose to prominence by commenting on video games as he plays them. He appeared on the TV show South Park this year, while a June article in the Wall Street Journal suggested he was making $4 million a year from the adverts attached to his videos. He is also said to be very influential, his videos about the Skate 3 game saw the 2010 title rise back into the top 20.
10. Kim Kardashian and Kanye West Wedding Picture
???? ???? ???????????? Kim Kardashian West (@kimkardashian)
Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s wedding photo made Instagram history by attracting 2.4 million likes – the most ever received by the social media platform. Kim Kardashian, who has 22 million followers on the social networking site, posted the photo of herself kissing new husband Kanye West in front of their wall of flowers back in May. She captioned it with a simple diamond ring emoji.
