Twitter Celebrates Hoppusday

Did you have a good Hoppusday yesterday? In case you somehow missed it, Sunday May 3 2009 was Hoppusday on Twitter.

What is Hoppusday? Well it was a superb example of the hive mind pulling together to create something out of thin air. It was a day for Twitter users to honour Mark Hoppus (@markhoppus) of the band Blink182. Anyone wanting to join in simply posted a tweet including the hashtag #hoppusday.

And boy, did they join in. I don’t know how many thousands of hoppusday tweets there were but the tag went to number one in the Twitter trends list, even beating topical favourite #swinflu!

Hoppusday was devised by Brazilian fan site Action182. I don’t speak Portugese but according to a Google translation of their post:

Following the tendency of Twitter, to create special occasions for certain types of celebrations / situations, we will create the #hoppusday
[...]
We do #hoppusday happen Sunday. Hoppus first because it is what the Twitter USA. We honor him as the # hoppusday be a success, so just put a picture of Mark in his profile of Twitter during the Sunday and when it refers to #hoppusday use the tag “#hoppusday” next to what you’re talking about.

Hoppusday was just a bit of fun but it does show the power of the hive mind when mobilised properly. There’s a lesson here for marketing people and politicians. Imagine if Twitter had been around in previous years and some smart person had been able to trend #welovenewcoke or #nixonpleasestay…