#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,” “A ll 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.
Watch one of the comic parodies below.
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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