A few days ago, I wrote a blog of how Twitter evaluated 2015. The tweets of 2015 seemed more culture and celebrity oriented. But this is 2015 according to Facebook. According to Facebook, the past eleven months and ten days were very dark and grim.
Most if not all top 10 events talked about on FB this year have been tragic, disturbing and depressing news stories. On the list include the Charleston, SC shootings and confederate flag debate, Baltimore riots, both terrorist attacks in Paris (remember Charlie Hebdo in back in January), and the global war against ISIS. Other top ten Facebook issues include the devastating earthquake in Nepal, debt crisis and riots in Greece, and Syrian war and refugee crisis. The other two issues were somewhat lighter, but divided us as a nation. The first was the Supreme Court’s legalization of same-sex marriage in all 50 states. The top issue of Facebook talk was the US presidential election. While the US presidential election isn’t a catastrophe (well, depending on who you ask), but it’s already divided so many Americans. As contentious as the election is already, this issue is going to divide a lot more Americans in 2016 too.
Was 2015 that grim of a year? In a sense, yes. The top ten list didn’t include blizzards in Boston, droughts in California, a measles outbreak, a German pilot crashing his own plane with 150 passengers on board, and hundreds were trampled to death in a Mecca stampede. But there were some light and even inspiring events that happened in 2015. We had a heck of a Super Bowl. Pope Francis visited the United States. The US and Cuba thawed it’s 56-year-old icy relationship. So lots of good stuff happened. In previous years, events like the Super Bowl, Olympics, World Cup, even the Harlem shake dance craze (that reminds me, the whip nae nae was extremely popular in 2015) made the top ten. So what is it about this year? Was this past year darker than the others? Or is our mood just darker?