CULTURE SHOCK
Fun side of storm: #snoledo
1/10/2014
As far as weather event nicknames for the record-setting snow and arctic conditions from earlier this week, we could do a lot worse than #snoledo.
Credit the twitter hashtag to The Blade’s cop reporter, Taylor Dungjen @taylordungjen, who kicked off the trending pun with her Sunday tweet, “Happy Sunday, #Snoledo!”
“I was getting ready to leave for my assignment ... and thought, you know what would be funny? Snoledo would be funny.” I tweeted it and then a couple of other people tweeted it ... and then it kind of went from there.”
And so it began: Area residents took to their Twitter accounts via #snoledo to voice their concerns and worry, share their photos and stories, provide updates and inject a bit o’ humor into what was a record-breaking cold spell.
Some of my favorites at #snoeldo:
@konakenny: “How evil, in a scale from 1 to Kardashian, would it be to call for a pizza delivery today? I’m not doing it, just a thought.”
@dblstf: “Level 3 snow emergency starting @ 5:30PM. Glad my wine fridge is stocked.”
@MrBryanThompson: “You can not jump from a Level 1 snow emergency to a Level 3! What happen to Level 2?! Ugh! My OCD does not like skipped steps!”
@Andreuhhh: “#BarRescue is just what the doctor ordered!! Thanks @SpikeTV and @jontaffer you kept a girl from going insane!!”
@MorganZipfel: “I’m becoming restless in my house. Cleaned yesterday, did homework and a quiz today ... Now what?”
@gregwharris: “Everyone’s in Jeeps. And everyone in Ottawa Hills is in Land Rovers.”
And one from @AnneXXS about snow inches and men that was wholly inappropriate for a family newspaper but quite amusing.
Meanwhile, those posting to #snowledo seemed left out in the cold with a dying hashtag. At last count, #snoledo had 580 tweets and #snowledo had 57.
It got serious enough that those posting to #snowledo felt obligated to offer an apology and a retweet to #snoledo: @2012bmeyer: People are loving the whole “#snowledo” thing lmao
Then: My bad, “#Snoledo”
When you’re limited to 140 characters, what a difference a “w” makes. But it was more than just saving an extra character.
“[Snowledo] doesn’t even make sense,” Dungjen said when asked why she opted for the shorter pun. “It’s dumb and I don’t like it.
“I assume the people who are using it with the w aren’t paying attention — no offense to those people.”
#snoledo proved to be the second-most popular local hashtag behind #toledo. And given the enormity of the winter storm, I was surprised at how little Twitter users across the Midwest and the East Coast took advantage of the awesome potential of their own snow-related city puns. I only found one: #Chiberia, Chicagoans’ expression of their own icy situation. Otherwise, it was the trending #polarvortex, a reference to the term meteorologists used in describing what the storm was, that was by far most popular winter-related hashtag.
Meanwhile, #snowmageddon looks to have worn out its welcome on Twitter — thankfully — as has the once go-to #snowpocalypse.
“That stuff is so overused and it’s not funny anymore,” Dungjen said, apparently echoing the thoughts of many Twitter users. “It’s so generic and it captures everything in the universe that’s happening with snow. With snoledo, it’s specific to our community and more personal. I think people are maybe more free to have fun with it.
“And as miserable and terrible as [the weather has been] it can’t hurt to have a little fun.”
#snoledo #fun #endofcolumn
Contact Kirk Baird at kbaird@theblade.com or 419-724-6734.