Findings - Social Media

Social media has allowed the citizens of the world to share information and ideas like never before. What if that information is about dangerous new drugs and the horrific stories and images associated with their results? What if those ideas are that people on these drugs are turning into flesh eating zombies and that the apocalypse has arrived? Perhaps this is exactly what happened in the summer of 2012. Social media is a vast expanse of human expression, and the messages associated with the "Zombie Cannibal Apocalypse" were just as varied. Several social media user attempted to disseminate knowledge, both about the situation and victims as well as the drugs. Others attempted to exploit the panic caused in order to attain personal fame, spread their own ideals or just to indulge in fantasies of a zombie apocalypse. Still other chose to use social media to document the tragedies going on in a place away from traditional media sources. No matter how it is broken down social media played a huge role in the hype that summer, a ravenous population that was both deeply shocked and enthralled by the events that occured.