2016: It’s A Frikkin Hashtag World Game…

#2016WasTheYearThatIFinally was the Hashtag which was a rif on a game we did last year which was of course

But i never expected anything like this.

My co-host for the day was first time co-host Tom aka @shotalandia and what a terrible game to have as your first game co-hosting cos everything from now on is just going to be a downer… but Tom was a natural and slid effortlessly into the International team of UnNamed Ones [former co-hosts of the game who stuck around and refuse to leave while i keep them stocked up on Cheerful Banter]

The promo for the game to get people ready, looked a little something like this…

And as 1pm South African time hit, 6am EST, we started out with a few invitational tweets:

 

Followed by some examples:

#2016WasTheYearThatIFinally managed to compose an entire tweet without a single typoo.

#2016WasTheYearThatIFinally learnt how to Ewok [like an Egyptian] thanks to @KeshaTedder

#2016WasTheYearThatIFinally dressed up all classy like for me meeting our Americaland friends at the airport visit.

My co-host dived right in with a bunch of classics of which this is one:

And then a whole bunch of you jumped in with a lot of incredible tweets, many of which were inspiring and exciting to read but also there was also a lot of evidence of a really difficult year for a lot of people. So really a mixed bag, but we will get to those at another time [My list of Top Tweets called the F.L.O.P. aka Fish List of Prizeworthyness will share a bunch of those].

But the main surprise was the avalanche flood of incoming tweets from quite early on in the game.

It started fairly quickly but with no indication that it was going to be anything special until suddenly i would click on a different tab and then return to Twitterer to find 90 new tweets and then click away for a half second and come back and 40 new tweets and then reply to a few and suddenly find i am 300 plus tweets behind.

We trended fairly quickly in the USA although that is quite normal and were soon at number 1:

And then a while later we noticed that the UK had joined in:

But it was when we got a notification that we were trending in Germany [first time ever – does Germany even do trends?] that we started to suspect something special was on the cards…

In the midst of all this we were visited by our favourite bot, Seinfeld Bot, an inside joke that a game is not really a game until he shows up:

And then cities were joining in:

Finally my own country, the hardest one for my game to trend in [besides Germany] showed that we were up there:

And then things just got a little silly:

https://twitter.com/trendinaliaCA/status/798903496904818688
https://twitter.com/trendinaliaNL/status/798933677329653761
https://twitter.com/trendinaliaSE/status/798933680034938881

https://twitter.com/trendinaliaBE/status/798933660170756100
https://twitter.com/trendinaliaPT/status/798933712331153408

But then suddenly we appeared on the WorldWide Trending lists and at this point i was out at supper and had a meeting to go to so was trying to keep an eye on my phone… number 3 on the Worldwide trends [a list i’ve only been on once before after a year of games] seemed like a super big deal… but then NUMBER 2 and finally…

As the day progressed i was getting messages from my crew that we had made it onto UK Moments [there’s a UK Moments?]

And also Twitterer Moments [which my game has done 8 times before!]:

We had some big name or big account people joining in with the fun:

But it was a message from one of the game app organisers Robyn who told me her daughter had seen us featured on MTV which was confirmed later:

And then when i thought that it really couldn’t get any better unless Chris Pratt himself played the game and tagged me in the tweet, i woke up this morning to find an Ellen tweet:

And there was a moment of – i wish she hadn’t made a typo in her tweet cos i want to share it, oh wait that’s the joke – and then the realisation that her tweet was pretty much in line with the tweet that started off the whole game:

#2016WasTheYearThatIFinally managed to compose an entire tweet without a single typoo.

So all in all, what a fun game. Great co-hosting duties by @shotalandia [who we got over the 1000 follower mark during the game but please follow if you don’t!] who is going to be supremely disappointed with every game he co-hosts from now. Stellar work from an excellent team of UnNamed Ones as well as many regular names and faces who play the game every week who we are growing to know and love… and above all ALL OF YOU for sharing your highlights and lowlights of 2016.

If you have not yet downloaded the free @HashtagRoundup app it is a great and fun way to stay in touch with all the games that are happening…

It doesn’t have to be the end of the year for us to look back and celebrate accomplishments, new adventures, new people, bullets dodged and things like that, but with a month and a half to go it also gives us a huge opportunity to end 2016 off on a high. If this has been the worst year ever for you, it doesn’t have to end that way. Do something great for someone else. Pay the love forward. Invest in someone else’s hopes and dreams and see the effect that will have on you.

Above all, let’s keep the WIT in the Twitterer and let’s keep on finding ways to smile and lift others up and look for the good and be a part of changing the world for the better, right where we are.

Much love
brett fish and the world’s most famous stuffed dolphin, No_bob