Every year, as New York City summer cultural events enter full swing, Lincoln Center leads the charge with a rich palette of global theater, music and awe known as Lincoln Center Festival. Fortunately, my recent move a stone's throw from this venerable artistic hub coincided with the grand three-week affair, offering a wonderfully indulgent initiation into the Upper West Side. As the festival wrapped last week, I wondered about its social media profile. Realizing I'd never snapped a NetBase profile of any of the amazing artistic events offered in New York year round, the social analyst in me decided to investigate.
First, I had to consider the New York tradition of "kvetching" - what the New York Times elevates to an almost-Olympic sport. (If this self-proclaimed culture vulture followed the advice of every local art and theater critic, I'd have to join some 12-step kvetchaholic program-and never see a damn thing!)
So, what does kvetching look like in social media? Here's one view during the Festival timeline, critics included.
On the upside, tipping the NetBase Passion Intensity index for the festival was Sinead O'Connor's fabulous all-Gospel program at Alice Tully Hall, which I attended, peaking at 59% and 44%, on July 25 and 27 respectively. O'Connor was rivaled by a few other festival offerings the prior week, like Karlheinz Stockhausen's magical German opera, Michaels Reise um die Erde, the Chinese allegorical spectacle Monkey: Journey to the West, and a celebration of the composer/MacArthur Fellow John Zorn. Overall, the festival scored 66% sentiment and 58% passion intensity.
Social networks were all ablaze, as this diagram reveals, led by Facebook almost exclusively.
Another 20% of the Lincoln Center Festival social vibe took place on Twitter. Naturally there were hashtags referencing some of the performances, including #zornathon; #opera (for Michaels Reise um die Erde), as well as Sinead O'Connor's Gospel lyrics such as #jesus, #prayer, and #blind.
One of my favorites was Aurélia Thierrée's Murmurs, a low-tech circus like set from the Theatre de l'Invisible, embracing the audience in a metaphorical journey through a crumbling city. The show speeds down a frenetic spiral into the fine line between imagination and madness where bubble wrap and urban castoffs seamlessly morph into a phantasmagorical landscape. No social kvetching could be discovered here.