#WasteHisTime2016 trended in early January of 2016 when women took to Twitter to devise ways to waste a man’s time and break his heart. This hashtag allowed women to “give men a taste of their own medicine” and show what it would look like if women treated men the same way they treated women. Some tweets were comical while others were plain evil (#savage).
#WasteHisTime2016 peaked on January 6, 2016 and received a total of 1.6 million mentions. Most content coming from the hashtag were funny tweets that got people laughing, retweeting, and interacting with the hashtag. The most retweeted tweet (shown below) is a perfect example of how people used the hashtag as a way to showcase their comedic skills.
finally allow him to take you on a date then after have him drop you off at your other man's house #WasteHisTime2016
— cyrene tankard (@cyrenelovette) January 6, 2016
The word cloud includes terms associated with relationships, such as “boyfriend,” “single,” “talk,” and “chill.”
Most of the words in the buzz graph related to relationships. Additionally, most used other meme-worthy language that became popular during 2015 such as “Netflix and chill.”
Although #WasteHisTime2016 hashtag was a global phenomenon, it was most prominent in the United States. Rough 72% of the tweets including the original hashtag were from America. There were some mentions coming from other countries such as United Kingdom and Italy, but their contributions were small. Because this was a hashtag that was supposed to incite (traditional American) humor, people from other countries may not have understood the joke due to cultural differences. This would explain why the majority of tweets for #WasteHisTime2016 were from the U.S.
By Morgan Cavalcanto, Dana Wakeley, Jesse Noll and Madeleine Fournier