When Russia takes over Twitter
Medvedev sending his first (curse-free) tweet.
Twitter today rolled out hashtags in the Cyrillic alphabet that the Russian language uses. What better way to celebrate than by shouting “d@#k” from the rooftops? That’s basically what the Russian Twitterverse did.
For several hours today, jubilant Russian Twitter users catapulted a very popular, if very indecent, Russian word to the very top of Twitter’s worldwide trending hashtags. As one person I follow so delicately put it: “Plural of the Russian three-letter swear name for the male reproductive organ makes it to the top of the worldwide trends in Twitter.” Russians rejoiced – they had MADE it! Foreign users were confused. The most popular formulation being that it was a new Russian bomb or a weird Russian hello to Obama. Russians loved this one: “What is #хуи actually? I notice it's been on trending for hours. Is it a chemical formula or anything else?”
As morning rose in the US and evening settled upon Moscow, the word faded from popularity, replaced by important events like the blasts in Mumbai, or the arrest of Rodney King, or by, I dunno why, #yeahright. But for a few hours today, Russia was king. Go on, pat yourselves on the back, Pushkin would be proud.
Medvedev, for the record, did not take part.
The story you just read is available for free because thousands of listeners and readers like you generously support our nonprofit newsroom. Every day, reporters and producers at The World are hard at work bringing you human-centered news from across the globe. But we can’t do it without you: We need your support to ensure we can continue this work for another year.
Make a gift today, and you’ll get us one step closer to our goal of raising $25,000 by June 14. We need your help now more than ever!