Overview

#EWOKALYPSE is a Twitter hashtag launched by the Australian boy band Five Seconds of Summer as a tribute to the Ewoks, a fictional race of small, mammaloid bipeds in the Star Wars universe. Upon its introduction in May 2014, the hashtag sparked a number of other derivative hashtags and a fan-driven photoshop meme in which the faces of the band members are replaced with the face of Ewok.

Background

On the morning of May 22nd, 2014, sometime before 9:44 AM (EST), the Australian boy band Five Seconds of Summer updated the profile avatar of their official Twitter account^[1] with a group photograph featuring four Ewoks. The band’s four members Ashton Irwin^[6], Calum Hood^[7], Michael Clifford^[8] and Luke Hemmings^[9] also updated their Twitter avatars with photographs of Ewoks.

That same day at 9:44 AM (EST), Twitter user narryberryboo^[10] took note of the band members' Ewok profile avatars and tweeted the hashtag #5SECONDSOFEWOKS.^[11] In less than 48 hours, the hashtag was tweeted out over 4,000 times.

Notable Developments

#Replace5SOSSongsWithEwok

At 9:57 AM (EST), Espinosafthemmo^[4] tweeted out the hashtag #Replace5SOSSongsWithEwok, encouraging the fans to spoof the titles of the band's songs by incorporating the word "Ewok" and share them via Twitter.

In less than 48 hours, the hashtag^[5] was tweeted out over 3,700 times.

#EWOKALYPSE

At 11:01 AM EST, Five Seconds of Summer's official Twitter account^[1] tweeted out “Sooooo were all ewoks.” An hour later, the group introduced two additional Ewok-related hashtags #RISEOFTHEEWOK14 and #EWOKALYPSE. In less than 24 hours of the tweets, #EWOKALYPSE^[2] was tweeted more than 220,000 times and #RISEOFTHEEWOK14^[3] was tweeted over 36,000 times.

In less than a day the hashtag #EWOKALYPSE^[2] was tweeted out over 220,000 times and the hashtag #RISEOFTHEEWOK14^[3] was tweeted out over 36,000 times.

Photoshop Meme

External References