Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize: 69% of Twitter users say WTF?
Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize award has taken a lot of people by surprise – including El Presidento himself, apparently – and Twitter users (or should that be the Twitterosphere?) were quick to chip in with their opinions.
Within seconds of the announcement being made, keyboards rattled into furious action, with a wide variety of sentiments being thrust into Twittersville.
To save you churning through zillions of posts, those crazy boffins at Crimson Hexagon, used some clever-clogs technology to analyse the gist of what the overall reaction was.
Here’s a natty diagram illustrating their findings:
According to their results, 31% of tweets were positive about Obama’s award with the remainder expressing a host of negative opinions (often featuring the acronym ‘WTF,’ we imagine).
urban75 says
The bulletin boards on our sister site, urban75 were even more damning, with posters describing the award as “the triumph of optimism over achievement,” “a parcel of shit,” and “a farce.”
One lone poster defended the award, praising Obama’s achievement as “bringing hope to millions of people, helping to change the nature of race in the US, fighting the medical lobby and republican party to try and bring health care to the poor [and] rising from a poor background to become president of the US.”
Elsewhere, a poll on the Guardian’s site asked the question: Did President Obama deserve the 2009 Nobel peace prize?
The results so far are almost identical to Twitter’s:
31.3% Yes. He’s changed the landscape
68.7% No. It’s far too early
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I like that graphic from the people of Crimson Hexagon. It looks like a multi-coloured Polo mint. I don’t think you can do one of those in Excel – although I haven’t used it for years.
Obama was only two weeks into his Presidency at the time of the closing date for nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize. Perhaps the mood of optimism for those short weeks had a kind of halo-effect.
However as Kissinger received the same award previously I suppose anyone can get it. Or perhaps the Nobel committee were really desperate to find someone to recieve it.
Hasn’t done anything yet
R U serious?
Makes the prize a joke
WTF
Chinese Human Rights Activist Hu Jia – imprisoned for campaigning for human rights in the PRC, not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama.
Wei Jingsheng, who spent 17 years in Chinese prisons for urging reforms of China’s communist system. — not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama. (Not to mention the symbolic value of awarding a Chinese dissident on the 20th Anniversary of the Tianenmen Square Massacre.)
Greg Mortenson, founder of the Central Asia Institute has built nearly 80 schools, especially for girls, in remote areas of northern Pakistan and Afghanistan over the past 15 years – not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama.
Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad, a philosophy professor in Jordan who risks his life by advocating interfaith dialogue between Jews and Muslims, also not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama.
Afghan human rights activist Sima Samar. She currently leads the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and serves as the U.N. special envoy to Darfur and is apparently also not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama.
Cute art, but I think it’s inaccurate. The majority of Tweets I’ve seen…and response from other mediums can’t see what Obama has done to deserve it, and the rest think it’s a disgrace that weakens the credibility of the prize.
It’s winding up the rightwing loons in the US no end, something to be happy about no?
There might be a case for giving something like this at the end of a 8 year presidency, having made a substantial contribution to world affairs.
But after less than a year is having a laff…….