The #NewWestGoesViral hashtag is doing more than just trending some nights across Canada.
It got a big Canadian celebrity involved on Wednesday night.
Music superstar k.d. lang liked a tweet posted about her on the #NewWestGoesViral thread about her legendary performance during the Vancouver 2010 Olympics as she sang Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen.
And then she thanked another person (my former boss, Fred Armstrong, from my Maple Ridge newspaper days) who called her a “goddess” on the thread.
“That’s very kind,” lang tweeted.
Thisnightly gathering among the New West Twitterverse has sparked joy amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Each evening, folks are invited to share their thoughts on a particular topic using the #NewWestGoesViral hashtag.
Sapperton resident Ruby Campbell (and, yes, my sister-in-law) hosts the nightly virtual tweet-up, which begins at 8 p.m.
“I am hoping to pick topics that are a little bit lighter and bring joy to people and make people remember to think about hope and think positive,” she told the Record recently. “Just anything to take us away from reality.”
Mayor Jonathan Cote has hosted one of the nights.
The idea came about after one local resident wondered if it might be a good idea to shut down local discussion on Twitter for a couple of weeks, fearing the discussion could get dreary.
“My immediate response was, ‘No. Why would we want to lose such a valuable social tool in a time where we are supposed to be social isolating?’” Campbell said. “That’s the only way we are going to be able to connect with people we would normally go to see at different events or we would be on boards with, and so forth. This would be a fun way to do that. I thought, let’s do it in a way where we are not talking about the virus. Everything else is virus related.”
