The artist Hetty Douglas was entangled in the biggest social media storm of the year after she posted an Instagram story of three scaffolders with the caption: “These guys look like they got one GCSE between them.” But which of these phrases hasn’t she scrawled across a canvas and sold as art?
“You’re peng but your English is shit.”
“I might fancy you more if you were wearing a tracksuit.”
“Sorry for treating you like shit and 4 fingering your best M8.”
“Leave me alone.”
Reaction gifs – replying to a tweet or text with a gif rather than words – became extremely popular in 2017. But according to the gif-sharing app Tenor, what was the most popular gif of 2017?
A man blinking and looking confused.
Barack Obama dunking a basketball.
Two minions laughing.
Jon Hamm nodding his head in an “if you say so” kind of way.
“Sidebarring” is one of the nastiest things you can do on WhatsApp – but what is it?
Starting a new group chat with everyone in the old group chat except one person.
Griping to a friend about someone else by text while you’re all in the same room.
Accidentally sending a nasty message to the person you were being nasty about.
When someone tells you to “promise you won’t tell anyone this”, lets you into a secret, and you immediately copy and paste that secret into five other group chats for insight and analysis from your mates.
One of these is a new social network used by hundreds of millions of teenagers and valued at $1bn. The other four do not exist. Which one is real?
Music.ly.
BantsBible.
VidVote.
BullyME.
#SingSong.
A giraffe in a New York zoo became a YouTube sensation when the birth of her fourth calf was watched by 30 million people, but why did YouTube cut the livestream midway through?
Soothing birthing music was playing in the background and the zoo didn’t have the rights.
The zoo hadn’t paid for a premium YouTube account.
The calf appeared to breech and they were worried about upsetting young viewers.
There were concerns the stream violated YouTube’s nudity and sexual content policy.
It is well known that social media can send you into a rage or make you feel like you’re not having enough fun, but which social network did the Royal Society for Public Health rank as the worst for mental health?
Twitter.
YouTube.
Instagram.
Pornhub.
“Influencers” are people who don’t do anything but have lots of followers and are able to make a living by shilling brands. But what was blogger Belle Gibson found guilty of by an Australian court?
Not correctly tagging a post about flatulence medication as an advert.
Telling her fans to use illegal skin creams.
Telling her fans she had brain cancer and that her influencer profits were going to charity, neither of which was true.
Using digital distortion techniques to appear skinnier.
What’s a Finstagram?
A fake Instagram account where you post more openly to just a few friends because the social pressure of posting is too much.
A fallow Instagram account that used to be busy, but now never gets updated because the social pressure of posting is too much.
A “fail” Instagram post where you delete a photo when it doesn’t get enough likes because the social pressure of posting is too much.
A futility Instagram post where you’re about to post, but then you just hurl your phone across the room instead because the social pressure of posting is too much.
Why was Donald Trump’s Twitter account briefly shut down?
It was suspended because it was in violation of Twitter's policy on hate speech.
It was suspended by a disgruntled, Trump-hating employee on their last day.
Trump himself accidentally suspended the account while trying to add #MAGA to his Twitter name.
It was suspended because Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said he couldn’t live with his conscience if he continued to enable such globally destabilising horror.
Twitter increased its limit to 280 characters this year. Taking advantage of the extra space, very tedious people used Wingdings to play all but one of the following games:
Pong.
Connect Four.
Chess.
Tetris.
“Stashing” was another big Instagram trend this year. Is it?
Taking loads of photos on a night out and then posting them all in one go when you get home.
Hiding your new partner from any social media posts so that you can date them while pretending to be single in case someone better comes along.
Taking a fantastic picture, but waiting for a more “prime-time” slot to post it in, such as Sunday evenings.
Keeping hold of photographs of someone’s bad behaviour and threatening to post them if they displease you at some later point.
Jenna Abrams was a Trump-loving “alt-right” internet star who had 70,000 Twitter followers. But what was recently discovered about her?
She voted for Hillary Clinton.
She was being paid by Steve Bannon for specific pro-Trump tweets.
She is suing Trump in court for breach of contract in a real estate deal.
She was created by a Russia-based troll farm and doesn’t really exist.
Solutions
1:B, 2:A, 3:B, 4:A, 5:D, 6:C, 7:C, 8:A, 9:B, 10:A, 11:B, 12:D
Scores
12 and above.
Oh my God, Kylie Jenner, is that you? You’re a social media influencer, baby! Quick: strike while the iron’s hot and start flogging diet pills and “cleansing” teas before Ofcom catches up with you.
11 and above.
Oh my God, Kylie Jenner, is that you? You’re a social media influencer, baby! Quick: strike while the iron’s hot and start flogging diet pills and “cleansing” teas before Ofcom catches up with you.
10 and above.
Oh my God, Kylie Jenner, is that you? You’re a social media influencer, baby! Quick: strike while the iron’s hot and start flogging diet pills and “cleansing” teas before Ofcom catches up with you.
9 and above.
Pretty good, you’re not quite a fully fledged Instagram influencer yet, but you’ve surely got enough social media clout to get a reply from brands you complain about, or ruin someone’s life by dredging up a time they said something problematic when they were 14.
8 and above.
Pretty good, you’re not quite a fully fledged Instagram influencer yet, but you’ve surely got enough social media clout to get a reply from brands you complain about, or ruin someone’s life by dredging up a time they said something problematic when they were 14.
7 and above.
Pretty good, you’re not quite a fully fledged Instagram influencer yet, but you’ve surely got enough social media clout to get a reply from brands you complain about, or ruin someone’s life by dredging up a time they said something problematic when they were 14.
6 and above.
Not bad, but you could still be spending more time online. Have you considered flicking between Twitter, Facebook and Instagram all day every day until you’ve forgotten what nature feels like?
5 and above.
Not bad, but you could still be spending more time online. Have you considered flicking between Twitter, Facebook and Instagram all day every day until you’ve forgotten what nature feels like?
4 and above.
Not bad, but you could still be spending more time online. Have you considered flicking between Twitter, Facebook and Instagram all day every day until you’ve forgotten what nature feels like?
3 and above.
Uh, oh, seems as if you haven’t been spending enough time on your online brand. Quick, close all the curtains, stop talking to people in real life and spend the remainder of the year drafting Twitter bons mots and feeling a sense of constant sense of numbness.
2 and above.
Uh, oh, seems as if you haven’t been spending enough time on your online brand. Quick, close all the curtains, stop talking to people in real life and spend the remainder of the year drafting Twitter bons mots and feeling a sense of constant sense of numbness.
0 and above.
Uh, oh, seems as if you haven’t been spending enough time on your online brand. Quick, close all the curtains, stop talking to people in real life and spend the remainder of the year drafting Twitter bons mots and feeling a sense of constant sense of numbness.
1 and above.
Uh, oh, seems as if you haven’t been spending enough time on your online brand. Quick, close all the curtains, stop talking to people in real life and spend the remainder of the year drafting Twitter bons mots and feeling a sense of constant sense of numbness.
