This week we saw the end of the NHL and NBA seasons (go sports!) and a question of identification of racial identity sweep across Twitter. Not to mention the feels-filled Game of Thrones season finale that had the Tweeps reeling and sobbing into their social posts.
Time to open up the floodgates and let the data pour into our psyches.
Social revelation: the Rachel Dolezal story
Who is Rachel Dolezal? Her name became a household one this week, as it was discovered she'd been lying about her race for years, while working for the NAACP. With the conversation accumulating nearly 458K online mentions since June 11, the world took to Twitter to vent.
Men and women are totally equal in this conversation, on Twitter at least (if not when it comes to pay in the U.S.) Both genders have contributed mostly equal parts to this conversation, but men have a small majority with a 51% stake in unique, Twitter authorship around this topic.
And while the United States is certainly leading the conversation at 80% of authors - California, New York and Texas are the top states leading the convo.
The top hashtags tell the story of how people are looking to connect this recent discussion with larger political, social, and cultural conversations while the #RachelDolezal hashtag has garnered nearly 3 billion impressions.
This conversation will continue to grow, as it's grabbed the nation's attention in ways that many topics seldom do.
GoT Finale sent Twitter into a tailspin, what else is new? (spoiler alert)
Sunday's Game of Thrones finale was, indeed, a social event, accruing more than 974K Twitter mentions.
Neither men, nor women, dominated the conversation as unique authorship was fairly even with men comprising 55% of unique Twitter authors, and women contributing 45% of the conversation.
Basically, everyone was equally sad and not afraid to talk about it.
The minute-by-minute graph below shows each twitter mention around the finale, and the peak occurs as the series said goodbye to one of its main, and most beloved characters, Jon Snow - in a brutal fashion.
(Note: Time is represented in the above graph in GMT.)
It is easy to tell that Jon Snow's death was one of the more discussion-worthy (and upsetting) events in the finale episode, as Jon received his very own hashtag, along with the finale's official name of Mother's Mercy.
Viewers were outraged with the finale, with twice as many negative Tweets as positive, but it's mostly comprised of viewers witnessing and expressing their grief at Jon's fall. People love to feel, and the emotional fluctuations of any television show are what keep the people coming back for me.
"Jumanji" in real life
Flash floods led to wild animals escaping from a zoo and running wild in the streets of Georgia's capital, Tbilisi, and the internet is talking about it with more than 39,000 online mentions.
The conversation is loaded with references to Noah's Arc and the 90s film Jumanji as men comprise the majority of unique Twitter authors at 58%.
Most tweeters expressed concern for both the wild animals and people alike as they share recovery and incoming aid news. Based on the mentions map below, this was clearly a global discussion.
NBA or NHL: Finals/Playoffs Madness
This past week saw two of the Big Four sports' leagues crown champions, but there is certainly one clear winner when it comes to the social conversations each series produced.
The conversation around the contest for Lord Stanley's Cup generated about 227,000 online mentions. Not a small conversation by any means, except when it's placed next to the 4.2 million mentions created by the NBA FInals.
Both series lasted six games for the same duration of time, but even on the nights where the Lightning and Blackhawks clashed the NBA Finals still dominated the conversation.
When the mentions of both series were broken down by state, Illinois and Florida (both represented in the Stanley Cup Final) were the only two states with significant mentions of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, but even then basketball had more mentions.
The most popular topics within the Stanley Cup Final conversation are represented in the below cloud.
The most popular topics and involved with the NBA Finals is clearly represented in the conversation cluster here.
In a last effort to illustrate the dominance of the NBA Finals' conversation over that of the Stanley Cup, you can look at the top used hashtags as there is only one hashtag representative of the NHL series.
No matter which sport or which team you claim as yours, this week was a good one for sports fans.
Next up in social data
If you haven't had a chance to check it out yet, last week we released our #USjobjoy report and infographic in partnership with Monster, a global leader in connecting people with jobs. The year-long social media study reveals how people talk about their jobs in the U.S., which states have the most, and the least job happiness, how the genders differ when it comes to Twitter job talk, and much more. CNBC, Mashable and Glamour all had their own take on the data, with the intriguing state-by-state breakdown revealing West Coasters to be far happier when it comes to talking about their jobs on Twitter than East Coast residents. Surprised? Possibly.
Download the report for free.
Summer hits us in the Northern Hemisphere this weekend and we'll be listening closely to the trends and news stories breaking through on social.
Interested in learning more about social listening and data or have a question/trending tip for Brandwatch? Visit us here or email me [email protected]!