What happens when you mix a relatively mild seismic event with an extremely dense population of the tech-savvy and self-centred east coast? Twitter-splosion! Yesterday’s quake let loose 5500 tweets per second, beating Dead Osama and tying Fukushima’s 9.0. Priorities!
Between the marble and brick federal egocentrism of DC and the media self-fellation of New York, it’s no wonder there were 40,000 tweets regarding the 5.8 tremor within one minute of it happening — and that they reached us in New York before the ground started to shake. People love talking about themselves, especially when they are shaking because of an earthquake.
But for many soft, sensitive east coasters like me, it was also our first earthquake. And that’s kind of a big deal! And a particularly rare one for this side of the continent. But still — the fact that yesterday trumped the surprise killing of the most wanted, most heinous terrorist in the history of the world and a unfathomably powerful earthquake that triggered an ongoing nuclear disaster says something about Twitter. It’s at its most popular when it gives us a mirror to look into. And next to that mirror is a megaphone to scream at everyone about it. And nothing makes for a good ego screamin’ like a non-dangerous earthquake. [Twitter]