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Ellen DeGeneres' Viral Celebrity Selfie
I chose this event in social media history since 2014 due to the fact that it is notably the most viral tweet in Twitter history. This photo has a record-breaking 2.3 million likes on Twitter alone, and includes almost ten different celebrities in one iPhone shot. This photo broke records and shifted what the term "going viral" meant on social media. -
ALS Ice Bucket Challenge
In 2014, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge went viral across virtually every social media platform. Although there were several trends and challenges that went viral during this time, this one was notable due to the fact that this viral challenge has raised over $115 million dollars in donations since the challenge went live in July of 2014. -
Instagram Starts Including Ads
In 2015, after Facebook had already purchased Instagram, it became clear how much of a visual software Instagram was in comparison to Facebook. Instagram opened its doors to advertised posts on their site, and engagement trends changed radically, as well as the way the algorithm began to affect users. -
RIP to Vine
Vine, an extremely popular social media platform in which users were able to create short 6-second looping videos and post them for followers to see, was announced that it would be discontinued as an app in October of 2016 after being acquired by Twitter. This was then turned into an app called "Vine Camera", which lost the majority of its popularity and business. -
Cambridge Analytica
After being illegally involved in the 2016 United States Presidential Election as well as the Leave.EU campaign for Brexit, Cambridge Analytica was found to have kept illegal personal data from users and utilized said data in these campaigns by skewing the advertisements and creative assets these users were being served on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Finally, on May 1, 2018, Cambridge Analytica filed for bankruptcy and went out of business.
