Viral stories that took social media by storm in 2015 from the South China Morning Post
As temperatures drop and Christmas decorations adorn the hallways of shopping malls, we take a moment to reflect on the biggest stories of 2015 on our social media platforms. Ranked below are our most viewed stories from Facebook and Twitter.
1. Dog meat vendor dies after hitting himself with poisoned dart
The Chinese city of Yulin in Guangxi province begins to trend on social media every June as it prepares for its annual dog meat festival, which is held on the 21st of the month. Over 10,000 dogs are killed each year to be eaten at the festival.
In 2013, one dog meat vendor accidentally shot and killed himself with a poisoned dart fired from a crossbow usually used to kill dogs, mainland media reported. This story originally went viral in 2013 and took off again this year when the SCMP revisited it and highlighted it online.
The SCMP’s followers on Facebook feted the poetic justice of the event, with British comedian Ricky Gervais enjoying the dark comedy and sharing the tale with his fans on Twitter.
Read the whole story here
2. Eyewitness video inside Cathay Pacific flight 884 as it was forced to make an emergency landing
On Cathay Pacific flight CX884, events manager Ethan Williams started filming with his mobile phone when he noticed cabin crew members “running around like crazy and warning signs going off”.
“Something’s not right,” he tells the camera as he films the aircraft making an emergency landing at a military airport in Alaska after smoke was detected on board. Luckily, all crew and passengers landed safely.
Read the whole story here
3. Girl power: Hong Kong's first all-female e-sports gaming team aim to smash stereotypes
Girls HK have been a hit in the male-dominated pro-gaming world since they teamed up in June, with over 50,000 fans on Facebook. The SCMP profiled the city's first all-girl gaming squad ahead of their exhibition match with Logi-A Team, a Taiwanese all-female squad. The two squared off at the E-Sport Festival in Hong Kong. How did the local girls go? Unfortunately, they lost 1-0.
Read the whole story here
4. Meet the woman behind MTR announcements
Ever wondered who the woman is behind those MTR announcements in Hong Kong every time you take a metro ride?
One of the SCMP’s Facebook fans says, “"The train to Chai Wan is arriving. Please let passengers exit first.’ I've known those two sentences word-for-word since I was five. This woman is literally a legend.”
Another person who posted on our site recalls the phonetic sounds of the music at the end of an announcement: “’Please mind the gap between the train and the platform’ *dood dood dood dood dood*”
Read the whole story here
5. Hong Kong Man Spends $400,000 helicopter wedding proposal
When it comes to marriage proposals, they don’t get much flashier than this. One local Hong Kong man asked his girlfriend to tie the knot by flying a helicopter over Victoria Harbour trailing a banner that read: "I love you, Stephanie BB, will you marry me?"
This did well on social media, largely because it was engineered to be a publicity stunt ensuring his declaration of love didn’t go unheard.
While some netizens said the woman was lucky for netting such a romantic guy, most of the comments were negative, with one man saying, “Not so logical girl. Waste of money. Poor guy should have known better.”
Some 29 people liked a comment by one of our more pragmatic Facebook followers. Her comment read: “Setting too high an expectation is a recipe for an unhappy marriage.”
Read the whole story here
