Raconteur

1. #Durablelove by Jonathan

What brand comes to mind when you first see a Social Media campaign with the hastag #durablelove during Valentine day? Brands related to condoms, sex or anything similar? Well, you aren’t the only one…

@jokoanwar first tweeted about #durablelove on February 6th. His first tweet regarding the hastag was in a form of simple questions about love that are addressed to his followers. Joko Anwar announced on Twitter that he was going to make a short romantic-comedy movie about #durablelove. The movie was planned to be aired for free via the internet.

Few days after Joko Anwar’s tweets, @adhityamulya and @istribawel were seen tweeting about the same hastag #durablelove. The married couple tweeted about their plan to attend the premiere screening of “Durable Love”. The conversations managed to spark a few questions about the movie and the hastag.

The hastag gained even more attention after @sajak_cinta ran a campaign/quiz on Feb 14, with same hastag. Many people were then seen joining the quiz and tweeting with the hastag #durablelove.

The peak of the event was when the movie made its public debut in the internet. The movie is accessible for free via www.durablelovemovie.com.

Around the same time, many people started to wonder about the brand behind the campaign. Due to several factors, many people were guessing that the brand behind the campaign must have been brands related to condoms, sex or anything similar. They were misled. The actual brands behind the campaign came from a totally different industry. The logo of the actual brands made its debut at the same time with the movie launching at www.durablelovemovie.com. Two logos of two giant technology companies

 

2. #RIPWhitneyHouston (August 9, 1963 – February 11, 2012) by Nadia

The world grieves after international diva Whitney Houston was found dead death on Saturday, February 2nd 2011 at 15.55 local time. The body was found at the Beverly Hilton Hotel by her boyfriend, Ray J. Hitherto. On Sunday, February 12th 2012, trending topic list in Indonesia was dominated with tweets about Whitney Houston.

Not only on Twitter, the trends of other social media sucha as Facebook, Google+ and YouTube were also dominated by topics on Whitney Houston.

Until now, people are still talking about the cause of her death. Some people said that she was drowned, and some others said that she died of an alleged combination of Xanax with other prescriptions and alcohol (source: Hollywood Life).

About Whitney: Whitney is one of the superstars in the music industry, and one of the musicians with the best-selling albums, with 170 million albums sold worldwide. Among her hits was the song How Will I Know, Saving All My Love For You, and I Will Always Love You. She received various awards, including two Emmy Awards, six Grammy Awards, 30 Billboard Music Awards, and 22 American Music Awards, totaling 415 career awards in her lifetime.

 

3. #IndonesiaTanpaFPI by Atri

When the Dayak community publicly refused the arrival of FPI (Islamic Defender Front) in Kalimantan last week, the news spread on Twitter and provoked various reactions from onliners. FPI themselves have quite a ‘reputation’ in society regarding their strict-fundamental ways of preaching. People expressed their opinions towards this news and somehow the conversations initiated a new hashtag: #IndonesiaTanpaFPI

Onliners used #IndonesiaTanpaFPI to express their concerns of FPI-related violent acts. The hashtag also encouraged an Anti-FPI rally at Bundaran HI, Jakarta on 14th February 2012. Supports, live-reports and pictures were circulating via social media during the rally, and tensions increased after a beating incident of one of the protesters by an unknown party.

Other related topics were also about conspiracy theories regarding FPI and disappointments toward the police and how the conventional media coverage are imbalanced compared to the live reports on Twitter.

The debate on FPI’s existence still continues until now; some are criticizing on the irony of democracy and others pointed out that the #IndonesiaTanpaFPI rally was just the beginning of more protest acts to come. Which side are you on?

 

4. Forza MILAN by Daniel

A fabulous performance by AC Milan when facing Arsenal at the first leg of the Champions League quarter final in San Siro, Thursday dawn Jakarta time. AC Milan dominated the game and won 4-0 to Arsenal. Despite the first leg win at home, AC Milan still has to play the second leg at the Emirates Stadium, Arsenal’s home ground. “Forza MILAN” also became Indonesia’s trending topic, showing that a lot of Milanisti (fans of AC Milan) are satisfied with AC Milan’s performance.

Besides that, AC Milan must not be complacent and must stay focused on the second leg game. Some Milanisti onliners commented on AC Milan’s bitter experience in the 2004 Champions League. AC Milan won the game against Deportivo La Coruna 4-1 on the first leg, buts was surprisingly routed 0-4 by Deportivo La Coruna in second leg. Deportivo La Coruna advanced to the next round due to goal aggregate. Will Arsenal manage to surprise its opponent on second leg game? We’ll have to wait until March 7.

 

5. Republik Twitter (Twitter Republic) by Daud

If you’re thinking of a new country with billions of population and led by an online government, unfortunately, we’re not there yet.

Republik Twitter is a film that describes connections between people’s lives on Twitter and their daily lives in the (real) world. Moreover, it describes how people are capable to affect public opinion through Twitter and use it for any kinds of interest, including politics.

Packed with love, friendship and humor nuances, the film successfully became this week’s trending topic. People have been showing enthusiasm toward this movie as shown by their tweets. Tifatul Sembiring, Indonesia’s Ministry of Communication and Information also expressed his appreciation. “If managed well, Twitter can support the development of many sectors: economy, social-politics, business and research.” said Tifatul.

“Nowadays, Twitter’s voice is people’s voice,” said Kemal (Abimana Arya) on one of Republik Twitter’s scene.

 

6. 2012 Grammy Award by Yuma

Grammy Award 2012 was held on Feb 13th morning (GMT+7) at Staples Center, Los Angeles. From the red carpet moments, online citizens in Indonesia started to talk about it via Twitter and of course more comments on Grammy’s winners and performers along the way. One of the highlights was Adele’s Grammy-winning sweep on all of the categories she was nominated for, including the prestigious categories such as Best Pop Solo Performance, Song of the Year, Best Pop Vocal Album, Record of the Year and Album of the Year. The fact that Adele (@officialadele) is quite phenomenal in Indonesia and lots of online citizens in Indonesia love Adele’s songs made this a grand buzz around the twitter world. Grammy Awards is the annual music event that is always “talked about”. Just days before the event itself, the talks on Grammy have already begun, especially on the day Whitney Houston passed away. She was supposed to be one of the performers on the show.

Other than that, online citizens also talked about Jennifer Hudson’s performance, singing I Will Always Love You, as a tribute to Whitney Houston who passed away a day before the Grammy. Nicki Minaj’s performance on “Roman Exorcist” was also talked about on Twitter, but more in a negative tone. A lot of online citizens think her performance was a bit too much and quite offensive to the Catholic Church. Many online citizens also talked about other performers, including Foo Fighters, Katy Perry and many others.