South Africa is the world's fifth most Instagrammable country according to travel publication Big Seven Travel. Ranking 192 countries based on hashtags, geolocations, reader input, and votes by "a panel of experts", South Africa was bested only by Australia, Hong Kong, Canada and Indonesia. But unlike losing in the quarter final of a sporting competition, South Africa can draw encouragement from the notable travel destinations it has outranked. This includes the Maldives (6th), Thailand (14th), Japan (15th) and Spain (18th). While Big Seven only lists Cape Town's most Instagrammable landmarks (I mean, for good reason), what about South Africa's other large cities and...
The US government shutdown continues into its 25th day, but that seemingly hasn't impacted the White House's dinner plans too badly. On Monday, President Donald Trump welcomed the NCAA football champions Clemson Tigers to his lodging, where a banquet of sorts was held. https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1085028803762622466 "Great American food," as Trump calls it, was fed to the players to celebrate the team's triumph against Atlanta last week. But the athletes didn't seem too keen on the idea. "I thought this was a joke," mouths one of the players as others heaped Big Macs, pizzas, French fries, and McNuggets onto plates that were far too small. "The...
HBO has released a new teaser trailer for the final season of Game of Thrones as well as an official release date. The trailer focusses solely on three of the four remaining Stark children as they walk through the crypts of Winterfell. Echos from their relatives follow them as they turn to face their very own statues. We assume the trailer is, in true Game of Thrones style, full of foreshadowing. It might not be a good season for the Starks, if that is the case. Fans across social media are breaking down every inch of the teaser, with the hastags #GameOfThrones and...
Just when you thought you've heard it all, a picture of an egg now holds the record for the most liked picture on Instagram. In today's "that's enough internet for me" news, a photograph of a plain chicken egg uploaded by @world_record_egg has claimed the coveted trophy previously held by Kylie Jenner. Jenner's post, which chronicles the birth of her baby with Travis Scott, was liked more than 18-million times. The snap of the egg, uploaded 10 days ago, now holds more than 24.7-million likes. https://www.instagram.com/p/BsOGulcndj- "Let’s set a world record together and get the most liked post on Instagram. Beating the current world...
South African musician and entertainment personality Nomuzi Mabena has been accused of staging a car crash by the people of Twitter. In the live Instagram video, which can now be found on YouTube, the artist is seen making an announcement after a night out when the car she's in seems to crash. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81K3r-Ocr8c Fans immediately took to Twitter to express their concerns but quickly found the footage and lack of news coverage suspicious. Thus sparking an ongoing debate. https://twitter.com/AdvBarryRoux/status/1083595765338071040 https://twitter.com/sibusiso_lukele/status/1083520181928898561 https://twitter.com/KevinsHeart3/status/1083489723820240899 An image circulating the platform suggested that the video was part of an awareness campaign for drunk driving. https://twitter.com/Daiters/status/1083549136136351745 Yet there are some who don't buy that...
On Thursday former NFL player Tim Tebow announced his engagement to South Africa's former Miss Universe Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters. Tebow broke the news on Instagram in a series of snaps that have since racked up more than 430 000 likes. But it seems that Nel-Peters is stealing the limelight from Tebow on Google Search. According to the search giant's Trends portal, which monitors and charts patterns in global search habits, Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters has received more than 500 000 search queries on Thursday in the US. The number's also likely to climb as the Western hemisphere wakes from its slumber. Surprisingly, Tim Tebow is among the...
Twitter will be testing new features to promote conversation on its platform over the next few weeks. In an interview with Engadget at CES 2019, the social network confirmed that a select number of users will receive new features that it hopes will "increase the health of public conversation". Last year Twitter stated that it was determined to improve the quality of conversation in public areas of its platform through an improved layout of threads, replies, and status updates. The company's director of product management Sara Haider told Engadget that "pretty big changes" are coming to conversations, especially to how they "look...
Although the movie is still two months away, tickets are on sale for Captain Marvel along with a new "Special Look" trailer and movie posters. https://twitter.com/captainmarvel/status/1082483707922001923 The sneak peak teases fans with more plot details, and reveals yet another familiar character comeback as a younger version of himself -- Agent Coulson. While there's still some time before Captain Marvel premiers, it seems that these small details are keeping most fans pretty excited. https://twitter.com/caroldamnver/status/1082482438075547650 https://twitter.com/itsjustanx/status/1082488490980462593 https://twitter.com/MarvelousRealm/status/1082421057724788739 Other fans have their doubts. https://twitter.com/Mitch692/status/1082483393986732033 We are, however, all going to have to wait until 8 March to see what becomes of this eagerly anticipated addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Feature image:...
On Wednesday, social network Twitter shed some light on some of its 2018 metrics, including South Africa's most popular hashtags, and the country's most popular tweets. While one would think that the most retweeted tweet would focus on politics, the country's SOE crises, or anything to do with sport, it's not the case. These are the most retweeted tweets of the year in South Africa according to Twitter. Published in July, this repost of a clip filmed by Africa News tells the story of a 11-year-old Nigerian artist who has a particular talent for producing life-like portraits. At the time of writing, it...
There are just a few weeks left in 2018, but Instagram is still not done releasing features on its platform. This week, the company has revealed three new features to help you communicate with your followers. "Starting today, you’ll see new ways to interact with your friends and form a deeper connection with the people you follow on Instagram," the company said on its blog. The first two features involve an earlier 2018 release - the Questions sticker. You can now respond to a Questions sticker using music from Instagram's music library. "Whether you want fresh music to get in the holiday mood, or...
After scrapping his original Twitter account, former South African president Jacob Zuma, has on Friday reemerged on the social network. Tweeting under the handle @PresJGZuma, Zuma thanked Twitter for the "warm welcome" with a short clip explaining his intentions. For one, he wishes to "move with the times" to join this "important area of conversation". He also addressed the plethora of fake accounts using his name, as well as the people on the social network who are "talking about" him. Good morning MzansiThank you for the warm welcome, I look forward to engaging with you. pic.twitter.com/sr1MhSNf0F— Jacob G Zuma (@PresJGZuma) December 14,...
Kanye West has tweeted more than 120 times in the past 12 hours, as the simmering rivalry between the Chicago-born rapper and Canadian rapper Drake reignited. And yes, it's a long story. The beef itself stems from Kanye West's production involvement in Pusha T's recent album in which the latter spits acid over Drake's unannounced child with a former adult actress, and his newfound angry guy persona. In Kanye's tweetstorm, he tells Drake that he did not "tell Pusha about your son" and that he's been "trying to meet with you for 6 months". But that's just the tip of the iceberg. Kanye later...
It's pretty fashionable to launch your own political party in South Africa nowadays. The latest public figure to do just that is former SABC COO Hlaudi Motsoeneng. Today, the African Content Movement (ACM) lurched into being just a few days after former Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille launched her new party, called GOOD. But de Lille's party received nothing but good puns on Twitter. (That good pun was entirely intentional). Motsoeneng's was met with a bevy of opinion. A swathe of users were defiantly "nope". To think the will be people voting for him 🚶🚶🚶#HlaudiMotsoeneng pic.twitter.com/ALR3JnH1yu— Lerato Mjali (@LeratoMjali) 13 December 2018 https://twitter.com/Penuel_N_Nkosi/status/1073144242636234757 While...
It's taken just under a week, but finally, YouTube Rewind 2018 has lived up to the hype. It's now the platform's most hated video ever published. With 10-million dislikes, it has usurped Justin Bieber's 2010 hit "Baby" while becoming the first video in the platform's history to rack up an eight-digit dislike total. It's not exactly surprising either. On 10 December -- just four days after it was published -- it became the second most disliked video on the video platform. Feature image: screenshot, YouTube Rewind 2018 via YouTube
Instagram has released its 2018 trends, and its hearts all around, sticking true the platform's recent efforts to spread "love and kindness". "We hope this roundup inspires you to use Instagram to spread joy and kindness this holiday season," said Instagram on its blog. The most used emoji on the platform was the heart emoji, which was used over 14-billion times. Even the most used Giphy sticker was a heart. In particular the Heart Love sticker by Arata, which features a little Instagram heart bouncing around. The Heart Eyes face filter on Stories was also the most used Face Filter on the platform. Other...
Cardi B’s rant on US government shutdown goes politically viral
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