Social media lit up Wednesday night during the first presidential debate, making it the most tweeted U.S. political event ever.
Users argued over who emerged as the key character from the first debate between President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney.
The winner: Big Bird.
Romney mentioned the "Sesame Street" character as he defended his plan to stop subsidy of PBS to the debate's moderator, former "PBS NewsHour" anchor Jim Lehrer, who is currently the program's executive editor.
"I'm sorry, Jim. I'm going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I'm going to stop other things," the former Massachusetts governor said. "I like PBS. I like Big Bird. I actually like you, too. But I'm not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for us."
With that, a firestorm of activity bursted onto Facebook and Twitter, the latter of which saw 17,000 tweets a minute, mostly about an 8-foot, 2-inch-tall yellow bird.
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- DEBATE RECAP: Obama, Romney clash on economy in first debate
- IN DEPTH: Debate impressions: Big Bird and body language
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We asked our political analysts for their reactions:
"It's unfortunate we are talking about Big Bird and 'Sesame Street.'"
-- Frank Torres, Political Analyst (R)
"The memorable moments are important. Those are the things you are going to see on Twitter and YouTube."
-- Jeremiah Jaspon, Political Analyst (D)
Shortly after Romney's comments, parody accounts started popping up on Twitter, claiming Romney was going to "fire Big Bird."
But perhaps the funniest tweet was posted Thursday morning by the "real" Big Bird on the official @SesameStreet account:
"My bed time is usually 7:45, but I was really tired yesterday and fell asleep at 7! Did I miss anything last night?"
In a statement Thursday morning, Sesame Workshop, the company that produces "Sesame Street," said:
"We are a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization. We do not comment on campaigns, but we're happy we can all agree that everyone likes Big Bird!"
While many on social media have claimed, jokingly or otherwise, that Romney's plan to stop funding PBS will "fire Big Bird," Sesame Workshop's Sherrie Westin, executive vice president and chief marketing officer, assured everyone that would not be the case.
"Sesame Workshop receives very, very little funding from PBS. So, we are able to raise our funding through philanthropic, through our licensed product, which goes back into the educational programming, through corporate underwriting and sponsorship," said Westin. "So, quite frankly, you can debate whether or not there should be funding of public broadcasting. But when they always try to tout out Big Bird, and say 'We're going to kill Big Bird,' that is actually misleading, because 'Sesame Street' will be here."
The bigger picture: Memorable campaign moments
The Big Bird blowout online brings up a bigger question of the role of memorable quotes like this in presidential campaigns.
"George H.W. Bush looking at his watch," Republican political analyst Frank Torres recalled. "There was the Ronald Reagan moment: 'I paid for this microphone.'"
Can they define a candidate from here on out? We'll have to wait and see.
The advice from our political analysts:
"If I'm Mtt Romney, this is almost my 20th debate. Stick to that winning formula," said Torres.
As for President Obama, Democratic political analyst Jeremiah Jaspon said, "He needs to be on the attack in the next two debates, and bring the attack on Mitt Romney."
- VIEWER POLL: Do you think memorable moments during the presidential debate will have a bigger impact on the campaign trail? VOTE ▲ | COMMENT ▼
Social media renders rapid judgment on debate
AP -- Big Bird is endangered. Jim Lehrer lost control. And Mitt Romney crushed President Barack Obama.
Those were the judgments rendered across Twitter and Facebook Wednesday during the first debate of the 2012 presidential contest. While millions turned on their televisions to watch the 90-minute showdown, a smaller but highly engaged subset took to social networks to discuss and score the debate as it unspooled in real time.
Until recently, debate watchers would have waited through the entire broadcast to hear analysis and reaction from a small cadre of television pundits. Social media has democratized the commentary, giving voice to a far wider range of participants who can shape the narrative long before the candidates reach their closing statements.
"People still use old media to watch the debates, but they use social networks and other new media to have influence, voice opinions and be involved," said Scott Talan, an assistant professor of communication at American University who studies social media and politics. "Old media is not dead; it's growing. But now we have more people involved and engaged because of digital means."
The political conversation plays out across a range of social platforms, especially on the industry giant Facebook and on Twitter, the social networking hub where opinions are shared through 140-character comments known as tweets. Reflecting the changing times, many television analysts now monitor Twitter and Facebook feeds and use information gleaned from those platforms to inform their punditry.
Twitter announced shortly after Wednesday's debate that it had been the most tweeted event in U.S. political history, topping this year's Republican and Democratic National Conventions.
With 11.1 million comments, Wednesday's debate was the fourth most-tweeted telecast of any kind, coming in just behind the most recent Grammy awards, MTV's Video Music Awards and the Super Bowl, according to William Powers, director of The Crowdwire, an election project of Bluefin Labs, a social analytics firm. It was far higher than the previous political record holder: the third night of the Democratic National Convention in September, which drew 2.5 million comments.
A significant spike in social media commentary came from women, The Crowdwire found. Some 55 percent of comments about the debate were made by women, compared to just 39 percent during the Republican primary debates.
Unlike the wider viewing audience, debate watchers who comment on social media "are politically engaged in the strongest possible way," Powers said. But, he added, "it's a bit of a hothouse population. It does skew younger, and I'm not sure how much middle America is represented."
Twitter scored Romney the debate's clear winner according to Peoplebrowsr, a Web analytics firm. The group found 47,141 tweets mentioning Romney and "win or winner" compared to just 29,677 mentioning Obama and "win or winner."
Romney was also the top tweet in battleground states including Florida, Ohio, Nevada and Colorado, Peoplebrowsr found.
Search engine Google announced the debate's four most searched terms: Simpson-Bowles (the bipartisan fiscal commission Obama appointed); Dodd-Frank (a Democratic-backed financial reform law); Who is Winning the Debate; and Big Bird.
The debate, focused on domestic issues, was a numbers-heavy discussion of the economy, debt and entitlement reform. It produced strong reactions on Twitter from its earliest moments, from the candidates' attire and appearance - "Obama: solid blue tie with dimple. Romney: red tie with stripes, no dimple," tweeted publisher Arianna Huffington - to Jenga, a stacking game Romney and his wife, Ann, were said to have played with their grandchildren before the debate.
From there, the social chatter settled into a few major themes.
Big Bird.
Early in the debate, Romney said he would defund public broadcasting to help bring down the deficit but added that he liked Big Bird, a popular character on PBS' "Sesame Street." Social networks immediately responded, with participants posting spoof photos of Big Bird and other "Sesame Street" characters on Facebook and setting up parody Big Bird Twitter accounts.
During a lull in the debate, an ABC news executive tweeted, "avian life is outstripping human life in this debate." Another viewer with the Twitter handle @A_CookieMonster wrote, "Obama killed bin Laden. Romney put a hit on Big Bird."
Jim Lehrer.
The veteran PBS newsman was widely panned as the debate moderator, with viewers complaining he asked weak questions and did a poor job of keeping command of the debate's time and tempo. Lehrer's name became a trending topic on Twitter, and his performance drew jeers from countless participants. "Jim Lehrer is like the grandpa at dinner table who falls asleep and wakes up randomly shouting," tweeted a woman with the Twitter handle of Bookgirl96.
Romney's big win.
Social media participants marveled at Romney's strong outing and pronounced Obama's debate performance flat, non-energetic and meandering - a dud. While Obama has been leading Romney in battleground state polls in recent days, the consensus on social networks was that Romney's debate performance had breathed new life into his campaign.
Obama supporters were some of his toughest critics. Andrew Sullivan, a pro-Obama writer for The Daily Beast whose Twitter feed, Sullydish, has a loyal following, declared: "This was a disaster for the president." Joe Mercurio, a New York media buyer, wrote on Facebook: "It could have been worse."
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