Hurricane Bawbag. Got to love it. A title for a storm (not a hurricane) that is uniquely Scottish, filled with Scottish identity. To me, the Hurricane Bawbag phenomenon (can I call it that? I think I will...) doesn't highlight global warming or the coming of what many religious nuts believe is an apocalypse in 2012. No, it highlights the power of the Internet and, more importantly, social networking.
The last time I remember a storm as bad as HB was almost 13 years ago. It was Boxing Day, a few days short of a month after my parents and I moved into our new home. We had gone out to dinner with my Grandma to celebrate my Dad's birthday, but sadly our dinner table conversation kept being interupted by loud whistles of powerful winds and treacherous rain beating down on the restaurant. Upon leaving, I remember feeling like Michael Jackson from The Earth Song video (4:14 onwards - which at the time I thought was pretty cool actually) trying to get into the taxi.
Anyway, the point of this is, the term Bawbag is not new, and someone could easily have made the same joke to their friends 13 years ago during the previously mentioned storm, only for it to remain as a personal joke. Nowadays, one person says it on Facebook, their friends say it, their friends' friends say it, and next thing it is one of the most talked about topics on the world wide web.
Incredible, it really is. Also, let's look at the trampoline video, which yesterday was filling up my Facebook news feed. I'm sure whoever posted it originally would have thought it as something funny just to show his friends, never expecting it to get 600,000 views on YouTube and make national news. There's also been so many 'remixes' of Trampoline, these are two of my favourites featuring two famous cartoons -The Family Guy remix / The Simpson's remix.
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