It's been a tumultuous news week with bold magazine covers, the unfortunate tragedy of Cecil the lion, and it wouldn't be 2015 without another GOP politician announcing his or her goal of being the next leader of the free world.
Get ready to say goodbye to July and hello to a whole lot of social data.
We start this week's post where last week's ended - up in space.
Earth 2.0 is out of (but similar to) this world
The discovery of Kepler-452b is a big deal for the sole reason that it's just like home. Meaning: it's the planet that most closely resembles Earth that we're aware of to date. Too bad it's 1,400 light-years away.
With this announcement from NASA, discussion about "Earth 2.0" on social generated over 92K online mentions. This other world has caused an entire planet to share in the conversation - while the US is leading the way with 53% of all mentions, this number is much lower than the US normal contribution, which is typically in the 80% to 90% range, thus showing how much every other nation is contributing.
The geotagged map below, further illustrates how the conversation has taken place all over Earth 1.0.
Good Luck New Chucks: Converse Launches New Design
Iconic is a word that's probably over-used, and iconic products are hard to come by. Converse, however, has an iconic product with its Chuck Taylor All Star sneakers. Some would deem it wise not to mess with an icon, but that's exactly what Converse did.
Converse unveiled the redesigned Chuck Taylor and the collective reaction has been favorable. The redesigned Chucks have been mentioned more than 26,000 times online and the conversation is overwhelmingly positive.
Here are the main themes within the Chuck's conversation - you can see this being the first redesign in 98 years has contributed a lot to the discussion.
The magazine cover heard round the world
The hashtag #TheEmptyChair has been used more than 26,000 times on Twitter, with virtually no negative sentiment, as the public has rallied on social to relay a message of support for sexual assault and rape victims who feel alone and helpless based on the most frequently mentioned topics in the conversation.
The larger discussion around New York Magazine's cover, which also includes #TheEmptyChair, has accumulated nearly 50K online mentions. The overall conversation is five-times more positive than negative among Brandwatch sentiment categorized tweets. There's a large volume of supportive mentions in the conversation, centered around the strength of the 35 women who appear on the cover of New York Magazine. Many people are also using this social media discussion to call for a change in the way our (the US) society approaches victims of sexual assault, rape and domestic violence.
The top hashtags around the larger conversation are led by #TheEmptyChair which has accumulated more than 105 million impressions.
The robots are coming
We've seen all the movies, and know enough to be certain that when the machines rise, it isn't exactly good for us - a.k.a. the humans. Now we might not be discussing an exact Terminator scenario, but autonomous weapons aren't good for us either. That's the latest message from Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking and many more AI researchers who are smarter me.
As a letter expressing the concerns of the previously named was unveiled yesterday, many have taken to different, less autonomous, machines to share their thoughts and opinions on the matter. With over 21K online mentions on this topic, it's clear the public is paying attention.
The top hashtags shed light on the overall message of the conversation as #BanKillerRobots, a hashtag prevalent within anti-drone warfare circles, has amassed over 4.8 million impressions.
An opinion shared by Elon Musk, himself.
If you're against a military AI arms race, please sign this open letter: http://t.co/yyF9rcm9jz
- Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 28, 2015
More popular themes are illustrated in the cloud below.
RIP Cecil the Lion. We Will Roar for You
This week has seen its fair share of lows, as most do, but there is no way you haven't heard of Cecil the Lion. The corresponding hashtag, #CecilTheLion, has been used more than 671K times.
The alleged hunter who killed Cecil was mentioned more than 112K times within this conversation by name.
The top hashtags within this conversation are below. You can see the most prevalent is #CecilTheLion with over 4.2 billion impressions, but the alleged has received a lot of attention as well, resulting in two separate hashtags.
Popular themes across gender are found below where you can see that "BanHunting" is supported, overwhelmingly, by men.
Y'all know there can only be one president, right?
Another week sees another Republican candidate formally announce his intent to run for the US presidency. This week's hopeful is Jim Gilmore, a former governor of Virginia. With Gilmore's hat now in the ring, that brings the grand total of popular GoP candidates to 17.
Peep the charts below.
Republican Candidates
Democratic Candidates
Now it's a party
Data, coming right up
As the summer feels half over, there are loads of events coming up we'll be tracking over the coming weeks. From the Emmy's in September, to the MTV Video Music Awards, and everything in between, we'll be keeping an eye out on how top stories and trends are playing out on social media.
Interested in learning more about social listening and data or have a question for Brandwatch? Visit us here or email me dinah@brandwatch.com