The Oscars Made Me Do It

I just finished writing a reflection last week about how Twitter is confusing and Facebook is everything….and then the Oscars happened.

It was a typical day, my alarm went off I rolled over, picked up my phone to turn it off and began scrolling through my Facebook feed. I’m up early so not many people had posted yet. My feed mostly consists of a couple articles, things from the night before I might have missed and encouraging quotes and bible verses from a couple sites I follow. I usually just look, maybe like a couple things. As I’m beginning to wake up a little more I leave Facebook and head to my Timehop. This is one of my favorite new apps and it’s fun to look through and see what I posted today 1 year ago and sometimes as far back as 5 years ago. I was still in high school then so many times I’m reminded of how embarrassing and awkward I was and I quickly exit out of the app.

Today is Sunday and it’s game day so that means we have shoot around (hence the getting up early). I’ll scroll through Facebook on the way to the gym as I continue to try to wake up. It hasn’t changed much since I woke up, but it’s something to do. After shoot around I get my phone back out but I usually check my text messages (normal people are actually beginning to wake up by now). Then most likely listen to music on the way back to the hotel (when it doesn’t matter if I fall asleep or not). When we get back I usually sit in my bed and try to use the hour or so before our pre game meal to work on homework. Which actually means I scroll through Facebook for a good 15–20 minutes on my computer, maybe comment on a post, maybe post something about the game (these are big maybes here) and then get started on homework. After pre game meal they take our phones (something about us not being distracted…?) so naturally I go back to the room and get on my computer. I usually iMessage with my family because they are back from church at this point and scroll through Facebook some more. Since I’m most likely not working on homework but killing time I’ll open up a couple articles that I might have seen from earlier and read through those. I follow a couple women who write Christian blogs and will usually read a post from them. If I felt moved by it I’ll repost it with my favorite quote or some encouraging words. This wasn’t from Sunday but here’s a good example:

http://www.aholyexperience.com/2015/02/the-wake-up-call-to-the-church-that-is-isis-whos-answering/ (and the link if you’re interested in the article)

By now it’s probably GAME TIME! So I put on some music, close up the social media and start to get ready and focused for the game. The next bus ride I don’t have my phone so I don’t have access to social media. If the bus has wifi I might text my mom or dad on my laptop but I don’t usually look at my feed. The next time I open up Facebook is after the game, once we are on the bus and have been given our phones back. There is also food waiting for us there so i’ll most likely eat before I get my phone out again. Since it’s a Sunday game it is probably only 4 0r 5 o’clock at this point. This Sunday we were at Creighton so we drove to the airport and flew home right after the game. We charter our flights so the bus pulls up and we get right on the plane. I’ll usually scroll through my Facebook feed again while I’m waiting to take off, I also might snap a picture out the plane window and post it to Instgram. When the sun is starting to set or there is snow on the ground i’ve actually gotten some pretty cool ones before.

This was one of those a couple weeks ago as we were leaving Milwaukee. I also like to take pictures out the window once we are in the sky and will post them when we land, especially if it’s a sunset. This Sunday though I was so excited to get back to campus (my dad was here for a visit) I actually wasn’t on Social Media much. I was texting with him as we got closer so he knew when we had arrived. When we finally got back to Marquette and he picked me up from my apartment we went back to his hotel room to hang out and watch the Oscars together.

While we sat there and watched I was on my computer a little bit but was really just enjoying the show without any social media. Once it got started though and the random categories began to be introduce I decided to take a break and Google Hangout with one of my friends. I met him at a Christian camp for college athletes this summer and we Facetime every Sunday. Lately we’ve been using Google though because it’s more convient and more fun. I don’t get on my Google+ account for anything else though and I think i’m actually only friends with him on there. We talked for about an hour and then I turned my attention back to the Oscars, just in time to see the In Memorandum. I continued to watch without social media until it happened…Lady Gaga gave her ridiculously amazing tribute to the Sound of Music. I literally sat their in disbelief from the time they announced her through the entire song and then gasped when she introduced Julie Andrews. I remember thinking to myself, I think Julie Andrews just won the Oscars…not an Oscar, The Oscars. I mean she got a standing ovation for goodness sake. And that’s when I started to wonder if other people felt this way or if it was only me. Of course I went to my trusty old Facebook feed and found….Nothing! Well not nothing, I found one person had posted about it. But everything else was business as usual. So of course I took a deep breath and typed www.twitter.com into my url.

At first I was totally overwhelmed, so many people talking about different things and then I remembered the nifty little trending box and headed straight for that. I knew what I was there for and figured that would be the best way to find it. I was also curious to see how long it would (or if it would at all) take “Lady Gaga”, “Julie Andrews” or “The Sound of Music” to begin trending.

I decided to start with the “Oscars” and began scrolling through all the tweets with Oscars written out. Some were interesting, some were ads, some were funny, and crazy enough many already had GIFs and Memes made from earlier moments in the night. Then all of a sudden they were all talking about the infamous Julie Andrews/Gaga/Sound of Music tribute and I saw that they were also trending. This was the box the next day because I was very happy to see Julie Andrews was still trending. It was nice knowing that something so classic still had the ability to surprise and that someone Julie Andrews was able to get the recognition she deserved.

But I digress a little. Not only did I get on Twitter and begin searching for “trends” I even…made my own tweet *gasp*! 3 of them to be exact…2 were original and one was a retweet. They are pictured next to this and i’m proud to say the one I retweeted was actually retweeted again by someone. The rest were pretty much ignored but I was somewhat proud of myself for contributing to the conversation at all. In general though I realize now more than ever that each platform (Facebook and Twitter) have things they are best at and advantages for using them. For a live event like the Oscars, Facebook isn’t quite fast paced enough to keep up with the hype but it was the perfect place to post a Vanity Fair article on Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer the next day.

So whether it was the Hollywood glamour of the Oscars or the “practically perfect in everyway” Julie Andrews, Twitter some how pushed it’s way into my daily social media routine on Sunday and I’m (surprisingly) glad that it did!

Here’s an amazing screen shot from the beginnings of Lady Gaga and Julie Andrews trending just for fun. This wasn’t a post together but two separate ones that coincidentally ended up next to each other, I think I literally LOLed….