The week in hashtags: #HeForShe, #LeftShark, #EffYourBeautyStandards, #Bombay

Dancing with sharks, busting ghosts and kicking the patriachy where it hurts. Just a few of the things social media has been up to this week…

#HeForShe and #Impact10x10x10

In the days since she delivered another passionate, patriarchy-smashing speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos on 23 January, Emma Watson’s #HeForShe and #Impact10x10x10 campaigns have been gathering attention apace.

This might have something to do with the announcement that the Harry Potter star will play Belle in the forthcoming Disney live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast, sure… but it’s mainly because she took part in a decidedly un-Disneyfied Twitter Q&A this week, in which she advised men on how to show solidarity with the cause, told teenagers they don’t have to choose between family and a career, and advised a young girl to become an engineer to prove her father wrong.

If she can bring those kinds of messages to a Disney princess, we’re sold.

 

#LeftShark

It’s time for our yearly session obsessing over a sporting event we have barely any knowledge of or interest in, because: Kay Perry and adverts! We’re dimly aware that the biggest match of the American Football calendar happened before Janet Jackson’s infamous wardrobe malfunction and Beyonce’s hair-flipping tour de force, but it’s only in recent years that we’ve been waking up on this side of the pond and going ‘ooh goody, the Super Bowl happened.’

Yesterday’s halftime show saw Katy Perry taking the stage in a performance full of as much cartoon campery and flash as you’d imagine. Arriving astride a giant gold tiger, dancing with a chorus of silver chess pieces, shooting through the sky on a mechanical firework and wearing four different outfits in 12 minutes (including our favourite costume, ‘fire’), the whole thing was like a glorious Willy Wonka fever dream.

But while the singer’s pipes were as loud as ever, the show was actually stolen by the endearingly malcoordinated dancing shark over her left shoulder. Better luck next time, Perry.

 

#StopKim

Because self-mocking celebrity humour is the order of the day (and also probably because they paid her a thousand sacks of cash), Kim Kardashian takes endless selfies in her new $4 million advert for T-Mobile, unveiled during the Super Bowl last night. ‘Each month millions of gigs of unused data are taken back by wireless companies. Tragic,’ she deadpans in full charity fundraising mode, captioned ‘Kim Kardashian: Famous Person’. ‘Data you paid for that could be used to see my makeup, my backhand, my outfits, my vacation… and my outfits. Sadly all lost. Please, help save the data.’

No danger of breaking the internet this time – at best, Kim’s selfie parade just bored it. ‘Please take this trash off TV. Irrelevant person and family! #stopkim’ tweeted @MomLife1, while @bubbaloo79 declared it ‘So unclassy on all parts #stopkim.’ Were they expecting Meryl Streep? Did they think Kimmy doesn’t realise she’s willingly the butt of joke? Either we’re missing something, or the angry tweeters are – but hey, complaining about vacuous non-celebs is one way to rinse that spare data.

 

#Bombay

A song about women’s safety in India has caused a Twitter row over a reference of the country’s financial capital – renamed Mumbai in 1995, Mihir Joshi’s song uses the city’s old name, Bombay. India’s film censor board have insisted the singer’s label bleeps out any use of the word ‘Bombay’ when the song is used on screen, for fear it will cause offense.

While disgruntled tweeters have used the hashtag #Bombay to dispute the film board’s decision, Joshi has defended his lyrics and claims they were never meant to be controversial. ‘Like everybody, I too have been disturbed with the status of women’s safety in our country,’ he said. ‘I did not know that using Bombay in the lyrics would take the focus away from the core message of my song.’

 

#EffYourBeautyStandards

An exciting day for anyone sick of seeing size 12 models labelled ‘plus-size’ (while the women who actually buy larger sizes are still virtually invisible in advertising), US model Tess Holliday was signed to MILK Model management last month – making her reportedly the first ever professional size 22 model. Holliday celebrated her career move with the gorgeously defiant hashtag campaign #EffYourBeautyStandards, which has since been used about 500k times on Instagram in only a few days.

Running with Holliday’s body-positive stance, followers have shared photos of themselves and applauded the model for flying a flag for diversity in an industry where her age (29), height (5″5), tattoos and piercings would also often be big obstacles to success. ‘I know other women relate to where I’ve been and the feelings of not quite being good enough. I hope through all of this that they realize they are good enough and beautiful no matter what size color or shape they are,’ she told Yahoo Beauty.    

 

#Ghostbusters

It’s happening! After months of speculation and anticipation, the cast for Paul Feig’s new all-female Ghostbusters reboot was announced this week, causing joy in many quarters – and anger, frustration and confusion in any corner Donald Trump happened to be in.

Bridesmaids stars Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig will be joined by Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon to head up the cast for the new movie, which will be released next summer. With three of the four leads also over 40, the casting decisions have been heralded as a victory for diversity by many film fans. Although as one tweeter pointed out, the bigger victory will be when we can see four women leading an action movie and not even bat an eyelid.

Ghostbusters believe gif

Lauren Bravo