The Week in Hashtags: #OscarsSoWhite, #RupertsFault, #SexualOrientation, #MyDayOnAPlate

From the Academy and Rupert Murdoch to health bores and January bandwagon-jumpers, pretty much everybody has been taken down a few pegs by the internet this week.

#OscarsSoWhite

The Oscars nominations list was announced on Thursday, and it was a great day – to be a white man. For everyone else, not so much.

The internet was pretty quick to notice that not a single person of colour was nominated in any of the acting categories. Despite getting rave reviews from every quarter, civil rights biopic Selma failed to earn a nomination for David Oyelowo’s portrayal of Martin Luther King, or for director Ava DuVernay – who many hoped would become the first black female director to make the list (and only the second woman ever to take home the award if she’d won).

In protest, Twitter created the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite and had a little fun at the Academy’s expense, in between our annual reminders that the Oscars don’t count for anything anyway. Except to the (94% white and 77% male) judges, maybe.

 
 

#RupertsFault

When Rupert Murdoch tweeted last week that Muslims ‘must be held responsible’ for their ‘growing jihadist cancer’, high profile tweeters like JK Rowling were quick to fight back. But the best response came from Parks and Recreation star Aziz Ansari, who kicked things off by asking the News Corporation boss ‘How can my 60 year old parents in NC help destroy terrorist groups? Plz advise.’, then went on to start the #RupertsFault hashtag, demanding Murdoch take responsibility for every evil thing ever done by Christians.

It went a little like this:

 
 

#SexualOrientation

Proof (if we ever needed more) that using hashtags in no way guarantees that you actually ‘get’ hashtags, Irish Senator Fidelma Healy Eames showed her support for Irish Health Minister Leo Varadkar yesterday with the words: ‘#Leo Varadkar has shown a lot of courage to come out. I wish him luck. #sexualorientation.’

Aside from making us want to get the legend printed on a tote bag, or maybe a perspex necklace, the Senator’s awkward tag provided a useful lesson in how sometimes it really is better to let the intern do your tweeting. Oh, and lols. Plenty of lols.

 
 

#MyDayOnAPlate

We’re halfway through January now, which means the internet is divided – between those who have stuck to their smug healthy eating resolutions, and those who haven’t and would like all those who have to choke on their own chia seeds. The retoxing spirit reached its peak on Wednesday when The Telegraph published the ‘My Day on a Plate’ of juice company founder and kale-botherer Kara Rosen.

Whether it was her ‘carby’ lunch of two rice cakes, her ‘weekend treat’ of an almond-milk cappuccino or the claim she only eats scrambled egg whites because she’s ‘never liked the yolks’ that pushed Twitter over the edge, it’s hard to say. But let’s just say they ripped poor Kara apart like a KFC bargain bucket. Parodies abounded… and conversations about the darker truth behind food-shaming swiftly followed.

 
 

#FiveWordsToRuinADate

It looks like Twitter won’t quit it with this particular theme until #FiveWordsToSumUpFiveWordsHashtags is trending, so we may as well enjoy the ride. Contributions to the #FiveWordsToRuinADate archive ranged from the witty to the groaningly archaic – ‘I’ve forgotten my wallet’ – to the results of every brand in the Western world having a ‘let’s OWN this’ meeting (really, Burt’s Bees?).

Like all the best dates, it carried on until the next morning.

 
 

#BlueMonday

Today is Blue Monday, the saddest day of made-up sudo science and half-baked corporate hijacking of the year. Unless of course you do what we’ve done, and pretend it’s all about enjoying the hits of noughties boyband Blue instead.

What could be cheerier?

Lauren Bravo