Total Eclipse of the X. Looking at Social Media Conversations About the April 8th Total Solar Eclipse.

On Monday, April 8^th, a total solar eclipse occurred with its path of totality crossing a large section of the North American continent. This was the second total solar eclipse that was visible in North America this century after the one in 2017. As this is such a rare occurrence where areas in the path of totality experience full darkness in the middle of the day, people are obviously going to talk about this unique phenomenon. Social media users did just that as #Eclipse2024 was one of the top trending topics on X this past Monday.

#Eclipse2024 was used over 100 thousand times and had a reach of almost 2 billion users on Monday alone, though the vast majority of these conversations took place on X. The sentiment of these discussions was overwhelmingly positive at about 85% positive and 15% negative. This makes sense as for many people this was their first time experiencing a total solar eclipse. Looking at the volume trend of the hashtag use across the day, there was a steady increase of the use of the hashtag which then exponentially increased the closer it got to the time of totality around 3:00 PM. Use of the hashtag then significantly dropped off for the rest of the day. Some of the top themes associated with the hashtag included totality, which referenced the fact that the moon fully covered the sun, clouds, which referred to the fact that many areas in the path of totality had some form of cloud coverage, and glasses, which referenced the special glasses needed to view the eclipse as it happened.

#Eplipse2024 was also far and away the most used eclipse hashtag where it was used tens of thousands of more times than other related hashtags. Additionally, the most used emojis in posts that used the hashtag were, of course, ones that depicted the sun, moon, and sunglasses. Also, as the eclipse happened primarily over the United States, the hashtag was exclusively used by American users on X. One other interesting point of demographic information is the fact that men used the hashtag almost twice as much as women. Looking at the conversation stream, it appears that organizational accounts, like NOAA Satellites and Texas Football, seem to be classified as “male.” This is further reflected in the influencers who participated in conversations about the eclipse. Some of the top influencers included Jimmy Fallon, Ryan Seacrest, and Elmo.

This story shows that no matter how fractured and divided the internet and social media can get with all the discourse that goes on, a very rare event like this can bring everyone together to talk about it for a moment. Things like politics and celebrity events can be divisive, but everyone can take some time to stop and look at the sun (with the proper eyewear).

Author: Ben Katarzynski