Twitter: Our Top Hashtag Picks of the Month

The shortest month of the year did not come short in terms of trending hashtags, breaking stories and showstopping moments. From Oscars confusion to Whatsapp drama, we’re in for a juicy roundup of the local and international highlights that truly stole th

#Oscars

Honoring the best films of 2016, the 89th Academy Awards took place on February 26, 2017 at Hollywood’s Dolby Theater, prompting the #Oscars hashtag to the very top of Twitter’s trending hashtags both during and long after the ceremony. The night was going smoothly, with memorable moments such as Emma Stone’s Best Actress acceptance speech, Damien Chazelle becoming the youngest director to ever win an Oscar for Best Director and a vibrant Justin Timberlake performance that send everyone dancing, until the time finally came for the Best Picture award to be announced and, to the utter shock of the stage and Internet audience alike, the wrong film was pronounced as the winner. Award presenters Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty were apparently handed the wrong card, which subsequently resulted in acclaimed musical 'La La Land' being announced as the winner but as the cast took the stage to accept the award, one of La La Land’s producers Jordan Horowitz noticed there something wasn’t right and proceeded to read the right card clearly stating Moonlight as the Best Picture winner. “There’s a mistake. Moonlight, you guys won best picture,” he said, leaving the audience in a mix of awe and disbelief and ultimately proceeding to handing the award to Moonlight director Barry Jenkins. The incident, which will eventually go down in award show history as one of the biggest gaffes ever seen on line TV, sent the Internet into a complete meltdown with twitter users bombarding the site with everything from hilarious jokes to fullfledged Oscar memes. PWC, the accounting firm in charge, issued an official apology following the incident that was posted to the official Oscars website. “We sincerely apologize to Moonlight, La La Land, Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, and Oscar viewers for the error that was made during the award announcement for Best Picture. The presenters had mistakenly been given the wrong category envelope and when discovered, was immediately corrected,” the apology reads. “We are currently investigating how this could have happened, and deeply regret that this occurred. We appreciate the grace with which the nominees, the Academy, ABC, and Jimmy Kimmel handled the situation.”

#NASA

NASA’S latest discovery, by which NASA’S Spitzer space telescope revealed the largest batch of Earth-sized habitable-zone planets orbiting around a single star to date, took Twitter (and the Internet) by storm. In other words, seven new planets were discovered, three of which are located in the habitable zone defined as “the area around the parent star where a rocky planet is most likely to have liquid water” according to NASA’S official website (although all discovered planets could potentially have liquid water). “The discovery sets a new record for greatest number of habitable-zone planets found around a single star outside our solar system,” the website reads.

#Marinelepen

Far-right French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen stirred major controversy during her short visit to Lebanon after refusing to wear a headscarf for a planned visit to Dar Al Fatwa, the country’s highest Sunni authority. Her stance was heavily commented on among Twitter users under corresponding hashtag #Marinelepen, as some praised her move under feminism labels while others deemed it to be a little more than mere showoff given that she was previously informed of the dress code prior to arriving to the meeting.

Tweet of the month

Our pick of the month goes to this funny reaction to Whatsapp Status, phrased hilariously by Twitter user Omar Kousa and earning over 2.9k interactions along the way. Doesn’t seem like a farfetched scenario at the rate things are currently going to be quite honest…