The News in New Media

Author: bkatarz

Elmo, We’re Not Doing Alright. But at Least We Can Joke About It!

January 31, 2024

At 10:46 am on January 29th the official Elmo X account made a post saying, “Elmo is just checking in! How is everybody doing?” 

It was an innocent inquiry from arguably the most iconic character from Sesame Street that was likely conceived to play to audiences’ nostalgia in a similar vein as the post from Steve from Blue’s Clues did a few years back, but the responses were not the same.

The one singular post from Elmo received over 131 million views, 77 thousand likes, 31 thousand quotes, 6 thousand reposts, and 10 thousand bookmarks. This post blew up. Looking deeper at the analytics, since Elmo asked the users of X how they were doing “Elmo” was mentioned across X over 300 thousand times, and these posts reach almost 2 billion users. The sentiments of the discussion around Elmo are almost exactly 25% positive to 75% negative. The top themes of the discussion include terms such as “Great Elmo,” “Good,” “Bad,” and “F**king limit.” This leaves one to wonder what exactly users were saying to or about Elmo. Many users took to quoting the original post to “tell Elmo” how they were doing.

While some were doing what has been referred to as “trauma dumping,” which the Cambridge Dictionary defines as “the act of telling another person or other people in a detailed way about problems and emotional pain that you have experienced, expecting them to give you sympathy and comfort, when they may not be able or willing to do this,” others took the opportunity to hope onto a viral joke. 

https://twitter.com/sleep2dream/status/1752047357439434817?s=46&t=3LXPh2VbZ7i1qhDmF-cxwQ

One hashtag that began circulating along with the Elmo discourse was #emotionalwellbeing which was popularized by a follow up post from the Elmo account posted on the afternoon of the 30th. The account wrote, “Wow! Elmo is glad he asked! Elmo learned that it is important to ask a friend how they are doing. Elmo will check in again soon, friends!  Elmo loves you.❤️ #EmotionalWellBeing.” 

Further, the official Sesame Street X account quoted this post providing some mental health resources saying, “Mental health is health! For #EmotionalWellBeing resources and more, visit @SesameWorkshop: Sesame.org/MentalHealth.”

It is also important to note that while this discourse has been taking place with users from around the world, it was primarily centered with users from the United States with over 130 thousand mentions of Elmo here alone. Some famous individuals and accounts also hopped into the discussion such as United States president Joe Biden, the government organization NASA, and singer-songwriter T-Pain.

In the end, all jokes aside, it is important to remember that mental health is an important part of our wellbeing. If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, consider the following resources:

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s free 24-hour helpline: 1-800-662-HELP (4357)

Mental Health America’s website

Mental Health First Aid’s website

Author: Ben Katarzynski

Traitors, and Faithfuls, and Murders Oh My! Listening to the X Conversations About Season Two of Peacock’s The Traitors

January 25, 2024

Have you ever wanted to watch a bunch of reality television stars live together in a castle in the Scottish Highlands while the secretly murder one another? Maybe you have and maybe you haven’t, but that is exactly what The Traitors season two is delivering this year. Premiering on January 12th, the Whodunit style show hosted by Alan Cumming, pits reality stars from shows such as Survivor, Big Brother, The Real Housewives, Love Island and more against one another as they secretly “murder” and interrogate each other in hopes of winning a prize pot of potentially $250,000. From the season premier to today, the sentiment around the hashtag #TheTraitorsUS leans slightly negative (about 60%) which is reflective of the drama in the show and the fans picking the sides of their favorite contestants. This comes from the over twenty thousand uses of the hashtag on social media since January 12th. And that is just in the United States alone.

After the success of season 1 last year which featured a mixed cast of reality television stars and everyday people, the cast of this season has upped the ante by including some of the biggest names in reality television from the last 20 years including Sandra Diaz-Twine, the first ever two time Survivor winner, Janelle Pierzina, the first four-time Big Brother contestant and recipient of VH1’s best reality star award, and Johnny Devenanzio “Bananas,” a seven time winner of MTV’s The Challenge. With a cast as star-studded as this, fans of reality television had an online frenzy when the cast was announced in September of last year.

As previously mentioned, this season of The Traitors premiered on January 12th streaming exclusively on NBC’s streaming service Peacock. The first three episodes of the season were all released together to reveal which contestants were the traitors, those whose goals are to sabotage and ultimately “murder” the other contestants, and the faithfuls, those whose goals are to add money to the prize pot and find out and eliminate the traitors hiding amongst them. With over eleven thousand uses of the hashtag #TheTraitorsUS on Xduring the premier weekend, fans have taken to social media to support their favorite contestants and, just as frequently, attack the contestants they don’t like. Along with the previously mentioned contestants Sandra, Janelle, and Johnny Bananas, other notable contestants that have left impressions on the fans from the first three episodes include Survivor winner Parvati Shallow, Big Brother winner Dan Gheesling, The Real Housewives of Atlanta star Phaedra Parks, and RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant Peppermint who were all frequently appearing names in the social media conversations. Here’s what some fans had to say:

After the premier day, the rest of the episodes are scheduled to be released one at a time on Thursday nights until the season finale. Sharon Tharp, a press member who specializes in reality television reporting, posted on X saying, “Not to be cryptic but episode 4 > first 3 episodes. #TheTraitorsUS.” This helped generate even more excitement and anticipation for the episode that aired on January 18th.

Episode four, which was filled with arguably more drama than the first three episodes, was mentioned over ten thousand times on X, and the conversations surrounding the episode were twice as negative (about 66%) as they were positive ( about 33%). This is likely due to the fact that the episode ended in a fight between fan favorite contestants Phaedra and Parvati. 

Other conversation leaders include contestants Tamra Judge and Larsa Pippen, reality television podcaster Rob Cesternino, and Big Brother winner Andy Herren. As this show is a confluence of reality television worlds, it’s no surprise that those who are established in the reality television landscape are all coming together to speak on this all-star cast. Here’s some of what they’ve said:

With episode four ending on a cliffhanger, the online discussion of season two of The Traitors is surely going to heat up as new episodes come out each week. Overall, since the premier on the 12th #TheTraitorsUS has been used over seventy thousand times across the world and reached almost one billion people, and that number is only going to climb as more contestants are murdered or ousted in the race to the grand prize which currently sits at $65,500. Can the traitors continue to off the faithfuls? Can the faithfuls find out and eliminate the traitors? Will the contestants be able to keep adding to the prize pot? Episode five premiers at 9:00 pm EST tomorrow, January 25th only on Peacock.

Author: Ben Katarzynski