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#WhyImVotingUkip

Added 10 years ago / Updated 10 years ago
Ukip

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Part of a series on UK Independence Party / UKIP. [View Related Entries]

Overview

#WhyImVotingUkip is a Twitter hashtag launched by the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), a rising right-wing political party described by some as the British counterpart of the United States Tea Party, that was subsequently hijacked by the critics in May 2014.

Background

On May 20th, 2014, two days before the local and European Parliament elections across the United Kingdom, UKIP Member of the European Parliament (MEP) candidate Donna Edmunds posted a tweet with the hashtag #WhyImVotingUkip, claiming that UKIP is the only party in the country that encourages world trade by cutting ties with the European Union. Immediately after, Edmunds urged other Twitter users to make #WhyImVotingUkip a trending hashtag.



Notable Developments

Support

The hashtag was initially met with genuine messages of solidarity from other members of the party and its supporters, many of whom voiced their own reasons as to why they plan to vote for UKIP in the elections on May 22nd.


Subversion

The earliest known tweet mocking the hashtag was posted by Twitter user @jennywhojenny just a little over an hour after Donna Edmunds tweeted the hashtag. Soon, many other critics of the UKIP began flooding the hashtag stream with jokes about the party’s conservative stances regarding a number of policy issues, from immigration and sexual orientation to social welfare and Europeanization.


That evening, Twitter user Dylan Martell posted a sarcastic tweet mocking the party’s association with white, heterosexual men. In 48 hours, the tweet gained over 930 retweets and 560 favorites.


On the following day, the @UKIP Twitter feed posted a photograph of UKIP leader Nigel Farage with the caption #WhyImVotingUKIP.


News Media Coverage

In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the hijacked hashtag, including Vice News,[2] Mirror,[3]BBC News,[4]IBI Times,[5] BuzzFeed,[6] The Week[7] and The Guardian.[8] According to the Twitter analytics site Topsy,[1] the hashtag was tweeted upwards of 325,000 times in the first 72 hours.

Notable Examples




Search Interest

Not available.

External References

[1] Topsy – #whyimvotingukip

[2] Vice – #WhyImVotingUKIP Is Social Media Suicide for the British Tea Party

[3] Mirror – #WhyImVotingUkip Twitter wags hijack UKIP hashtag to poke fun at party

[4] BBC – The rise and fall of #WhyImVotingUkip

[5] IBI Times – #WhyImVotingUkip

[6] BuzzFeed – 21 Amusing Reasons People on Twitter Say Theyre Voting Ukip

[7] The Week – Ten best responses to the hijacked hashtag

[8] The Guardian – #WhyImVotingUkip when a hashtag goes wrong-

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#WhyImVotingUkip

#WhyImVotingUkip

Part of a series on UK Independence Party / UKIP. [View Related Entries]

Updated May 23, 2014 at 05:33PM EDT by Don.

Added May 23, 2014 at 02:14PM EDT by Don.

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Overview

#WhyImVotingUkip is a Twitter hashtag launched by the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), a rising right-wing political party described by some as the British counterpart of the United States Tea Party, that was subsequently hijacked by the critics in May 2014.

Background

On May 20th, 2014, two days before the local and European Parliament elections across the United Kingdom, UKIP Member of the European Parliament (MEP) candidate Donna Edmunds posted a tweet with the hashtag #WhyImVotingUkip, claiming that UKIP is the only party in the country that encourages world trade by cutting ties with the European Union. Immediately after, Edmunds urged other Twitter users to make #WhyImVotingUkip a trending hashtag.





Notable Developments

Support

The hashtag was initially met with genuine messages of solidarity from other members of the party and its supporters, many of whom voiced their own reasons as to why they plan to vote for UKIP in the elections on May 22nd.




Subversion

The earliest known tweet mocking the hashtag was posted by Twitter user @jennywhojenny just a little over an hour after Donna Edmunds tweeted the hashtag. Soon, many other critics of the UKIP began flooding the hashtag stream with jokes about the party’s conservative stances regarding a number of policy issues, from immigration and sexual orientation to social welfare and Europeanization.




That evening, Twitter user Dylan Martell posted a sarcastic tweet mocking the party’s association with white, heterosexual men. In 48 hours, the tweet gained over 930 retweets and 560 favorites.




On the following day, the @UKIP Twitter feed posted a photograph of UKIP leader Nigel Farage with the caption #WhyImVotingUKIP.




News Media Coverage

In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the hijacked hashtag, including Vice News,[2] Mirror,[3]BBC News,[4]IBI Times,[5] BuzzFeed,[6] The Week[7] and The Guardian.[8] According to the Twitter analytics site Topsy,[1] the hashtag was tweeted upwards of 325,000 times in the first 72 hours.

Notable Examples






Search Interest

Not available.

External References

[1] Topsy – #whyimvotingukip

[2] Vice – #WhyImVotingUKIP Is Social Media Suicide for the British Tea Party

[3] Mirror – #WhyImVotingUkip Twitter wags hijack UKIP hashtag to poke fun at party

[4] BBC – The rise and fall of #WhyImVotingUkip

[5] IBI Times – #WhyImVotingUkip

[6] BuzzFeed – 21 Amusing Reasons People on Twitter Say Theyre Voting Ukip

[7] The Week – Ten best responses to the hijacked hashtag

[8] The Guardian – #WhyImVotingUkip when a hashtag goes wrong-

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Recent Images 3 total

 

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