Social media has become such an integrated part of society it has become hard to separate it from daily life.
Social media has become such an integrated part of society it has become hard to separate it from daily life. Yet it has been involved with the biggest stories in the news and has even been making the headlines itself. Here are the top five social media moments from 2012.
1. Kony 2012
2012 had to be the year social media took on a whole new level within society. A short video produced by Invisible Children Inc. set off a social media storm unlike any we had previously seen before. Although released in March it hit different countries, regions and even communities at intervals but it was not long before everyone was talking about Kony 2012. Despite your opinion on this particular campaign you cannot deny how it highlighted the power of social media.
2. American Presidential Election
The showdown between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney turned into something of a popularity contest earlier this year. Celebrities such as Beyonce, Ne-Yo and Mariah Carey made their opinion clear and so did the rest of America by sharing Instagram photos of their voting ballets. Both took to social media to argue their side. One of the most famous arguments must have been Clint Eastwood’s “Invisible Obama” speech and of course the President’s causal yet assertive reply via Twitter made his message clear: “this seat is taken”. And when indeed President Obama proved his seat definitely was taken with his tweet of ‘four more years’ proved to be the most popular tweet of the year with 810,000 retweets.
3. Royal exposure
The royal family has always been involved in the media, whether willingly or not, but this year we literally saw more of the royals than ever before. Of course there were those pictures of Price Harry stripping off to a game of strip billiards, as you do. While the British press had to fight for these photos we already saw and shared them thanks to the internet and of course social media networks. And let’s not forget the controversial images of Kate’s, umm, privacy being invaded. If the royal family keep stripping off at this rate we’ll have to bring out a bingo card, surely it will only be a matter of time before we get a full house.
4. Consequences with Twitter
This year saw some Tweeters showing their mean streak but the most noteworthy part was people fighting back. The infamous and unkind tweets regarding Tom Daley’s father during the Olympics was met with a karmic storm from his loyal fans and from Twitter itself. More recently Lord McAlpine got caught up in the Jimmy Savile scandal. When tweeters got carried away the former Tory treasurer took it personally and threatened to sue all those involved. But he did give a chance for tweeters to redeem themselves by offering an alternative: apologise and pay only £5 and he would forgive and forget. It definitely made us think twice on tweeting opinions so openly.
5. The Future of Social Media
MySpace made a supposed come up this year but it hasn’t yet managed to keep its place alongside the modern social media giants and 2013 doesn’t look to be its year either. More recently we saw an old friendship go sour with Twitter and Instagram. While Twitter had plans to buy the photo sharing service Mark Zuckerberg beat them to it. Not to be outdone Twitter is said to have several changes to compensate for this loss by focusing heavily on image sharing. However changes to Instragram’s policy saw a decrease in users over the Christmas period. This new policy will come into effect from the 16th January 2013 unless users delete their account before this time. If not they can sell your photos to be used for TV adverts, websites and even brochures with nothing going towards the photographer, this includes your beautiful photos of lunch and landscapes but also family members and children.
Think twice before your next Instagram upload.
