Newsweek proposed that outraged citizens should take to the Twitter feed #MuslimRage to comment regarding the magazine’s current cover story of unrest in the Islamic people. It didn’t work out that way. What they expected were a torrent of angry comments from right wing nutjobs and Muslims, maybe a few frank declarations from the occasional scholarly type. What they got instead was pure hilarity. The hashtag was deluged with comments alright, but the majority of them, from actual Muslims, reflected not the rage that Newsweek had decided they felt, but rather a sort of comedic backlash at being pigeonholed and stereotyped by American media. As news of the uncoordinated stunt broke, it has prompted a new dialogue, an unintended one about stereotyping cultures we are unfamiliar with when maybe they aren’t so different after all. Out of the thousands of Twitter posts, here are some of the best:
[…] Share on TumblrNeed proof that God is dead? Look no further than the Twitterverse, which is exploding today with the recent announcement that there will soon be an extreme shortage […]
[…] received a Grammy this year on behalf of his band Bon Iver, it sent hordes of viewers at home to Twitter to ask “who or what is Bonnie Bear?” Since then, the indie folk outfit has been carving their […]
[…] Stephen Colbert and Joel McHale. By most media accounts, specifically Twitter TV, who tracks Twitter trends, the stunt was a success. By my personal estimation, the prank was a fail, as only one person “in […]