The Harlem Shake

I'm going to go a little off topic here and talk about the whole Harlem Shake phenomenon that's sweeping the world currently. I'm sure by now you've seen at least one video on YouTube with people dancing ridiculously to the Harlem Shake song by Baauer because there are over 40,000 different versions of it. The videos are around 30 seconds in length and consist of one person dancing to the song alone for about 15 seconds, then it cuts to several people in absurd costumes making strange gestures for the rest of the video. I've seen plenty of things go viral before, but I don't think I've ever seen something get so popular so fast. This fad became famous almost overnight.

It all started on February 2nd with a video uploaded by The Sunny Coast Skate, who are five kids from Australia. 

This video kickstarted the whole Harlem Shake craze. As of February 10th, 4,000 Harlem Shake videos per day were being uploaded. It seemed like every famous person or group you can think of were getting in on the action. Videos were being shared over every social media platform in existence. The online site, Reddit, was a big factor in probably my favorite Harlem Shake video by the UGA swimming team.

The strange part to me is that this song came out almost a year ago, but thanks to five teenagers in Australia, the song is more popular than ever. In my opinion, this video craze will die out just as fast as it became popular. I'd say that by March we won't be hearing too much about the Harlem Shake anymore.

Company Twitter Mishaps

For my third blog post, I'm going to switch it up from the usual celebrity talk and focus more on companies and social media. In this instance, I'm going talk about some of the infamous social media screwups companies make. Social media is a huge part of companies today because customers can connect and interact with the business. Because of this, every single tweet and Facebook status from the company reflects upon their image. The people in charge of posting these things to the Internet must be very careful with their words.

KitchenAid is one of those companies that did not choose their words very wisely over Twitter. During the 2012 presidential election, the official KitchenAid Twitter account decided to discuss politics with its over 20,000 followers.

                           

Whoever runs the account apparently forgot to switch Twitter profiles and instead tweeted a very politically incorrect tweet. I for one have a couple Twitter accounts and sometimes mix them up myself, but one would think to be a cautious tweeter when you're getting paid to do it. KitchedAid quickly apologized, but the damage was done. KitchedAid doesn't like President Obama.

The same thing happened to Chrysler back in 2011. The Chrysler Autos Twitter account thought to take to Twitter one day to profess it's hate for some traffic.

"I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to f***ing drive"

 This F-bomb filled tweet was sent to its 7,000 plus followers. Chrysler apologized as well, but these things don't sit too well with customers, and one mishap like this can ruin your reputation.

Bottom line: think before you tweet/post. Choose your words carefully because one slip up can really damage your brand image and reputation. Social media is great with connecting to people, but make sure whoever runs the social media department is a professional that doesn't tweet stupid things. Your company does not ever want to be in the position that KitchenAid and Chrysler were in.

Kanye West vs. Social Media

For my second post, I'm going to talk about something I briefly touched on in my last post, Kanye West. I'm sure by now everyone has seen the "I'ma let you finish" moment at the 2009 MTV Music Awards that solidified Kanye as the most hated person in America.

I for one think this event helped Taylor more than hurt her but many disagree. Nevertheless, this story was all over blogs and social media sites everywhere for weeks, portraying Mr. West as the enemy.

In this particular case, saying social media is a powerful tool would be a giant understatement. Kanye was crucified on Twitter, blog sites, and media outlets everywhere. His interruption of Taylor quickly racked up views on YouTube and even the President of the United States called him a "jackass." For the next couple of months, Mr. West was completely silent and did his best to hide from the media so this would go away.

Fast forward a couple months into 2010, and we now have Kanye West joining Twitter. How would this be received? Answer: Not great. Kanye would frequently go on rants and tweet absurd things.

People were already looking for anything and everything to bash Kanye, and this just fueled the fire. Kanye was now hated on social media and hated for participating in social media. This is a prime example of what not to do with a Twitter account. After several threats of deleting his Twitter entirely, Mr. West ended up deleting every tweet he has ever had and started fresh. He now rarely ever tweets. Perhaps he's going for that pristine image where he only ever tweets once in a blue moon so when he does, everyone thinks it's a big deal. Or maybe he's scared to tweet. I for one feel bad for the guy. Give him a break. Maybe one day he won't feel the wrath of social media rain down upon him every time he tweets. Probably not, but one can hope.