10 top social media moments of the year

#BringBackOurGirls

This is arguable the best and most important hast tag in the history of social media activism in Nigeria.

In April, more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls were kidnapped by terrorist organisation, Boko Haram, which prompted Nigerian social media users to start an intense online campaign with the hash tag #BringBackOurGirls.

The hash tag which was first used by, Ibrahim M Abdullahi- a lawyer in Abuja- became a phenomenon, with millions of mentions daily on social media platforms. The campaign was so intense that it drew the attention of the whole world, and even the First Lady of the United States of America, Michelle Obama, who also joined in the campaign.

The hash tag #BringBackOurGirls began to trend globally on Twitter as the story continued to spread and by May 11 it had attracted 2.3 million tweets

Beard gang

The latest trendy gang to belong to now as a male is the #BeardGang. It got so big on social media that our Nigerian celebrities had to join in the fun.

2Shotz during the year in review took to his Instagram account to reveal that he has joined the train of the #Beardgang. “Bearded; if you are a man and you aren’t got this look…grow some cause your gill keeps starring,” the rapper wrote alongside a snap of his bearded face on Instagram.

Jim Iyke was another celeb that joined the gang.  “When u tell bae ur indoors watching movies buh ur boiz post pics of y’all Wildin out! “I’m here love! All dressed up buh indoors still watching movies. #lol joining the #BeardGang.”

Iyanya and Ebuka are amongst the celebrities that also joined in the trend.

The Ice bucket Challenge

The Ice Bucket Challenge, rave swept across all social media platform like wildfire. The Ice Bucket Challenge involves dumping a bucket of ice water on someone's head to promote awareness of the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and encourage donations to research.

Musicians, actors, reality TV stars, footballers, basket ballers, social medial enthusiast, all took to the activity, posting their videos on Vine, Instagram, Youtube, Twitter and Facebook. It went viral on social media during July to August of 2014.

According to The New York Times, people shared more than 1.2 million videos on Facebook between June 1 and August 13 and mentioned the phenomenon more than 2.2 million times on Twitter between July 29 and August 17. Mashable called the phenomenon "the Harlem Shake of the summer."

‘There is god oo’

When militants of the insurgent group, Boko Haram, in April, abducted more than 200 girls from a school in Chibok town of Borno State, the whole country was thrown into sadness.

Various campaigns were embarked through social media, street marches, petitions and various other means and the failure of the Government to rescue them left us with nothing to smile about

Then came our First Lady, Patience Jonathan who is known for her comic use of the English Language. “Na only u waka come,” she jarred on national television while addressing the principal of the school the girls were kidnapped from.

“There is God oo,” “All these blood you are sharing, there is God oo. There is God in anything we are doing,” she says in a video which became quite a comic sensation across social media platforms.

Memes, remixes, and all sort sorts of comic materials were created from this mantra, “there is god oo” created by the one and only Patience Jonathan.

Kermit the Frog

Kermit the Frog is a famous Muppet which was first introduced by Jim Henson in 1955 but became quite popular in 2014 because of its widespread use on social media.

The most Kemit the Frog parody on social media is the “but that’s none of my business” memes which shows Kemit the Frog character sipping something from a cup –usually a tea.

From there it became a favourite for social media users, making it one of the most trending items on social media platforms in 2014.

Shoki

YBNL rapper, Lil Kesh, burst into the scene this year with his successful single “Shoki”.

The budding rapper with the song initiated a dance step which went on to become a viral dance step among party goers and fun loving Nigerians. A-list celebrities like Tiwa Savage, Olamide have all been seen dancing the popular Shoki style.

The Shoki dance was also a big hit on the social media platforms.

Vampire Suárez

After two biting incidents, all hell broke loose when Uruguayan footballer, Luis Suárez, bit Italian defender, Giorgio Chiellini during a World Cup match.

According to Trendsmap.com, the topic was top trend on Twitter in over 50 countries including Nigeria.

Different memes depicting Swarez as a vampire also went viral across all social media platforms.

The Jay Z/Solange elevator scandal

TMZ on Monday, May 12 released security video footage of Solange physically assaulting brother-in-law, rapper, Jay-Z.

The footage immediately found its way to almost every news website and caused a melt down on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Different hash tag and memes were also created to make light of the incident.

Linda Gate

She is the biggest blogger in Nigeria, so when Google allegedly brought down her blogspot over alleged plagiarism offences, the social media reactions it garnered was not surpsrising. 

The ensuing drama between the blogger, Google and a certain Mr.  Mukhtar Daniyan with the popular Twitter handle @MrAyedee kept the rapt social media audience busy. Plagiarism accusations from right, left and centre besieged the blogger who also gave an apologetic response, giving us one of the most talked about moments on the Nigerian social mediasphere.  

Celebrity nude photos and fappening

On August 31, 2014, 16 high profile celebrities had their private photos posted publicly on websites like 4chan and reddit, an event now known as the fappening. These photos were obtained by several different hackers through targeted attacks on Apple's iCloud servers which permitted the attacker to continually try different passwords without being restricted(brute-force attack).

The leaking of the nudes photos of celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Rihanna, Jennifer Lawrence, Gabrielle Union and a host of others, threw social media platforms like Twitter and Faacebook into a frenzy.

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