Trends of the week

MANILA, Philippines - Twitter had a lot to chew on this week, what with all the glitz and glamour of the Oscars and the precarious tension in Eastern Europe. That’s quite a jump in the real world-significance scale, but to say that Twitter illustrated the wild contrast perfectly would be inaccurate. “Ukraine” and “Russia” trended earlier in the week, only to be swept away so easily by all things Oscars — from the names of winners and more notable losers, to a song that has inflicted the entire Internet with a paralyzing case of LSS. The Oscars conversation persisted well beyond Monday, forcing people who shunned Twitter on awards night to go back to their blissful caves of superiority. Those snobs, perhaps engrossed in news coverage of the Crimean conflict or other worthwhile matters, have no idea what glorious nonsense they missed.

#Oscars2014 even better than the real thing

I didn’t watch the Oscar Awards on Monday. In fact, I haven’t watched the Oscars in years — there’s too much self-importance, too many people I don’t care about talking about things I don’t care about, too many “bests” declared by people whom I will never be able to relate to unless I grow old to become a 70-year-old white man who owns a decrepit ‘60s bachelor pad in Hollywood. What I’ve been doing instead over the past few years has been way better: experiencing the Oscars through Twitter.

Here’s what I witnessed this year: Ellen DeGeneres was tragically unfunny — wait, you guys, she did okay, you have no idea how tough it is to host an awards show! — then went on to orchestrate the greatest selfie in the history of the Internet. Kim Novak’s zombie walked onstage while people on Twitter competed for the meanest zinger (my personal winner, from @nathanrabin: “Kim Novak announced the animated film winner named after her face”), Liza Minnelli wore a catastrophically revealing pantsuit, Jared Leto was the drunk uncle who wanted to share his thoughts on Ukraine, Leonardo DiCaprio looked profoundly sad, John Travolta called Idina Menzel “Adele Dazeem” for no reason (my Travoltified name, according to slate.com, is Angel Andrenson, which is a great porn name), and based on the day’s top trends, the song Let it Go from the animated film Frozen won Best Song. See? The Twitter version was way more awesome.

‘Let it Go’ just won’t let it go

After bombarding the Internet with a billion renditions on YouTube, the song Let it Go trended, hopefully for the last time, as Adele Dazeem (neé Idina Menzel) performed a version to end all versions at the Oscars. Or at least I hope so. As good a song as it is, it’s become as grating as “push mo ‘yan” and “PDAF.” This is the 21st century, where trends literally change by the minute, so it’s almost criminal for any song to be ubiquitous for more than three months. You know the song has worn out its welcome when the joke about how it’s the one unwilling to let go has, in itself, gotten old. And it still won’t stop. Just writing this whole paragraph made my head involuntarily play the song. Now would be the perfect time for Psy to release something. Anything.