Throwing stones at a trend
In the 1960s there was a famous sign in a London park that had only this written on it: ‘It is forbidden to throw stones at this notice.’ I always wanted to take a photograph of the sign but never got the chance.
I was reminded of it yesterday, however, when I had a look at what was ‘trending’ on Twitter. Sometimes the list throws up items of popular culture that one might want to know about. Anyway, one trending item was ‘Página 4 de 365′. This seemed to me to be a curious thing to have become famous, and so I checked out the tweets containing these words. It is totally clear that the expression is indeed trending: from the point at which I began writing this post to the moment in which I have reached this part of it, no fewer than 189 tweets have been posted referring to the mysterious page 4. But none of the tweets I could read (or could be bothered to read) explained what it was; instead, they all either asked what ‘Página 4 de 365′ was all about, or expressed irritation that it was trending. It seems to be trending only because nobody knows what it is.
The internet is a mysterious place. Let’s not throw stones at it.
Explore posts in the same categories: society, technologyTags: Página 4 de 365, trending, Twitter
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January 4, 2013 at 7:30 am
Looks like calendar day four of 365. It is the fourth!
January 4, 2013 at 7:43 am
I’m sure that’s right, Jo. But why would it trend?
January 4, 2013 at 8:00 am
Seems to have captured the imagination of the tweeters. Pagina 1,2 and 3 don’t seem to have been as popular. The Internet is indeed a mysterious place.
January 4, 2013 at 8:24 am
Sadly, I’m beginning to think more and more that I may be on twitter but I will never be of it. It seems ‘they’ tried to do this all year last year and ‘they’ are trying again this year. The why remains a mystery, and my pagina 4 is calling me off my phone and into nappy land, so I’ll probably discover it sometime in a few weeks when all the cool tweeters are bored with it…
January 4, 2013 at 10:22 am
Two similar ones attached.
January 5, 2013 at 12:44 am
Sorry Eugene, attached where?
January 4, 2013 at 6:56 pm
Apparently people started trending the new year, (isn’it good reason enough?) there have been page trends since the new year started (pagina 1, 2, 3 ) it stands for 4th page of chapter 2013 of the book of our life..particular popular with Latinos, only apparently mysterious…
January 5, 2013 at 7:01 pm
Could it not be a bit like how some notes on a string or how some words and phrases hold a resonance. For me the word Taklamakan. Even the sound has ghostly echos. Maybe Página 4 de 365 has more poetic meter in another tongue. It’s not exactly lively in English is it.
January 6, 2013 at 3:01 pm
I like your explanation V.H, it sounds very reasonable that behind some Twitter trends lie similar aspects..the sound but also the conceptual resonance of the word página in Spanish or pagina in Italian might stir a whole set of reactions mysterious to an anglophone ear..