The east coast was slammed by Hurricane Sandy this weekend and into the rest of the week. She didn’t just make an impact on the eastern states, she also made an impact on the social media world.
A parody Twitter account @AHurricaneSandy was created, with joke tweets about what Hurricane Sandy was doing. The account has over 236,000 followers and over 300 tweets for just the short time that account was active. The creators of the account stated that it was created as a humor account, but the storm was serious and people should donate to the American Red Cross to help those involved.
What’s interesting about the account is that, although this was a very serious storm and not something people should take lightly, it is still nice to have some humor during the tragedy. Other twitter users have made jokes about Sandy as well like, “Gangnam Style must be a rain dance and we’ve brought this on ourselves.” But overall, most tweets have been updates from news channels, government officials and residents about storm updates. I used Twitter as a place to get updates on the storm and to check in with family or friends.
Also, Twitter (and other social media sites) had a number of fake pictures going viral. I first saw this picture of the storm behind that Statue of Liberty on one of my friends Facebook pages back in Michigan. I commented on it saying it looked nothing like that in New York, only to find out a couple hours later, it was one of many fake Hurricane Sandy pictures that went viral. I’ve still noticed this picture along with others being posted around Facebook and Twitter.
It’s amazing so many fake pictures have gone viral since the start of this storm. I think I’ve noticed more fake photos making the rounds on social media than real ones. I’m guessing it’s because these fake photos have elements that catch people’s attention. With the above picture, it’s an intense, but beautiful photo. Then again, that’s that magic of photoshop. Other fake photos add a shocking element like showing sharks in the flood waters or dark clouds that look like the end of the world. They seem to be more intriguing than true pictures of Sandy.
It just goes to show that even natural disasters have an impact in the social media world.
Muffy Lavens 