-By Tricia M. Williams
Last week most of us were (shamefully) glued to our media outlet of choice, following the renegade path of a tin foil-esque balloon that we thought had carried a 6 year old boy out of his yard. I know I was one of the masses glued to my computer, constantly checking my Twitter platform for updates on exactly what was happening. I found out about the ‘Balloon Boy’ from Facebook, and then quickly turned to my Twitter to get the details via the hashtag #boyinballoon. And there he was, in all his hoax-y glory, being tweeted about like a modern day celebrity on a debilitating binge that sends them straight to rehab. Most of us were afraid for his life, most of us were calling the story ‘a mockery of journalism’, but the truth of the matter is we (as in the whole world) were talking about it- a lot. The fact that I’m blogging about it right now probably has most of you rolling your eyes, but the ‘Balloon Boy’ saga became a pop culture sensation, mainly thanks to Twitter and the Internet. Google released the statistic that little Falcon Heene became the number one Google search in the hours in which the balloon was in flight, and millions like myself tweeted the unfolding events (that he was safe thank goodness) religiously all the way up to the breaking news that his father was in trouble for using him as a meal ticket.
Using tools like Trendistic, you can see exactly how tweeting spiked during the news coverage, and how the trend has continued. It even gives you little exerpts of people’s tweets so you can see for your own eyes what the world was discussing. And it just once again shows how Twitter and other social media outlets are becoming the hot spot for breaking news. As this trend continues we will see a whole shift in the way news is reported and you can basically kiss your newspapers goodbye, as sad as that may be. But the reality of the way the world is going is that nothing is sacred and nothing will remain a secret as long as networks like Twitter and Facebook are breaking news faster than the TV. It’s more convenient, it’s instant, and it’s the wave of the future. One that the ‘Balloon Boy’ rode for his whole 15 minutes of fame.
The entire ‘balloon boy’ hoax was such a dirty thing to do. All the time and effort that was wasted just for their pitiful “moment of fame”. I hope they get a huge fine and go to jail!
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