Weather: Not the boring conversation-killer we once thought it was
During this frigidly cold weekend of unusually low temperatures in Boston, it seemed obvious that countless people would use this opportunity to compare our experiences this weekend to the trials and tribulations of Bostonians during last year’s epic winter.
It has always been somewhat amazing to me just how much people talk about weather, a seemingly mundane conversation topic, throughout social media platforms. However, when I thought back to my own experiences during last years “Snow-pocalypse” and a post related to these events that I shared, this trend started to make more sense.
Last year, during the aforementioned “Snow-pocalypse,” I shared a weather-related post that subsequently went viral (at least for Boston city standards). While this post was exceedingly simple, it provides a fascinating example of the social media weather-sharing trend.
Last winter, we Bostonians were all pretty stressed out and frustrated about the disruption that the snow was causing in everyday life. I saw plenty of articles discussing these disruptions and frustrations, as well as articles that tried to poke fun of the situation. Many of my social media connections shared such articles on social media, as did I. However, the one post related to our overly-snowy winter that seemed to get the most traction was a simple, happy message congratulating Boston on breaking snow records:
This post was published by the National Weather Service in Boston, certainly a legitimate source for this sort of information. 59,703 people shared this post (including me) and it received 2,085 comments. Many of those shares came after mine, and several of my friends shared this after I did. In case you can’t see the comment, it says:
“We did it!!!!
Share with family, and friends, Boston, you survived the snowiest winter on record!!!
March 15, 2015”
Now, on the surface, this is a pretty simple post, there is nothing particularly funny or enlightening about it. Yet, ~60,000 people still felt the need to share it. So, I’d like to analyze what made this post so sharable to Bostonians suffering the long, cold winter. This analysis shows, more broadly, why seemingly simple, unsophisticated posts can often generate unexpected amounts of attention:
1) Simplicity: This post does not require significant time commitment to read or decipher. The message is simple and immediately obvious.
2) Practical value: People seem to have an incredible urge to apply quantities to weather events. Thus, a report from the National Weather Service provides practical value; it allows people to truly understand the magnitude of the record snowfall.
3) Emotional message: One of the reasons people seem to share so much about weather events on social media is because weather really can get emotional. Any big storm has the potential to impact residents’ lives, often negatively. There is usually a threat of economic disruption and even fatalities.
At the same time, this statistic is also somewhat awe-inspiring, and perhaps deserves the happy snowman that comes along with it. After two months of disheartening, annoying snow falls, Bostonians get to see a happy message congratulating them on their strength and perseverance as they toughed out the worst winter on record.
4) Contextual relevance: People usually share posts related to extreme weather because it is a phenomenon that they experience in a group. The epic snowstorm, polar vortex, or extreme heat wave impact individuals differently, but we all see our lives changed in some way by these events. We feel part of a larger community enjoying or suffering together.
5) Reflects well on the sharer: Finally, there is something to be said about the simple, lighthearted, almost childish nature of this post. Instead of overwhelming the reader with depressing statistics of the snow’s negative impact on the city, it simply congratulates Bostonians on a job well done. Anyone sharing this post is presumably tough enough to make it through what has been defined by a very legitimate source as the snowiest season on record.
So, the next time you run out of things to talk about at a dinner party (or perhaps, on Facebook), consider whether the weather truly is a bland, filler topic or not!
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