#NosePinTwitter
Does that jog your memory? Yep, we're talking about the same Twitter trend that suddenly flooded your timeline with people sporting nose pins. It was such a rage three months ago that even Bollywood actress Chitrangada couldn’t help but floor us with a smexy shot of herself donning a nose pin.
Well, the trend is back! (Or should we say, it never quite died down?)
Thank the shaadi season...or not...but a simple search on the microblogging site with the hashtag will give you a stream of pretty nose pin pictures. Some even come with DYK facts on the history of nose pins.
We are immediately wired to do so some hardcore guesswork: A social statement perhaps? A protest against a social evil; a paid promotion by a jewellery brand, perhaps? Is it a conspiracy by the sanskari brigade to take over the Internet? What is the counter trend then? Where did all the trolls go?... Okay, maybe not that far, but you did break your head over the 5Ws of this trend.
After you are done admiring the ornate nose pieces that people are sporting, and making mental notes on which one to get for yourself, you’d find yourself asking –what exactly started this trend? Why is it a thing?
To answer all your questions...
“None of that”, said Tanzila, who is the creative head at a radio station and the girl who posted the first ever #NosePinTwitter.
“I just put out a post asking people to use the hashtag when they post a picture of their nose pin/nose ring next time. The next thing I knew, the hashtag was trending on Twitter India. There was zero purpose behind it. No grand cause, no purpose really...nothing. Although I loved wearing nosepins, and people around me seemed to appreciate it, until then, I never knew there was this overwhelming interest in nose pins.”Tanzila
It was a Twitter friend going by the handle @NamefieldMt to first suggest the hashtag actually, Tanzila shared.
And just like that, a trend was born.
Tanzila shared that she had been tweeting about a number of things before, but nothing gave her the viral status that a single hashtag about a nosepin did.
But there she was, asking people to post pictures of nose pins, and several hundreds of them responded back, even from across the sea in foreign countries.
“I think our Twitter timelines and other social media feeds are so full of hate and anger that when people see something they don’t necessarily find hurtful or something to be angry about, they latch onto it. A part of the internet just doesn’t want to think deeply, and consume pretty simple things,” added the self-proclaimed nose pin aficionado in retrospect.Tanzila
When day in, day out we see headlines of someone getting trolled, a part of us wants to believe the Internet has some positivity too.
When women (and some men) of all shades, shapes and sizes come together to celebrate #NosePinTwitter, it’s both positive and beautiful.
On that note, here are some more pretty nose pin pictures for you to binge on.
#NosePinTwitter
Photo Courtesy: Twitter/@KadakPavMaska
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)