The Twittersphere never forgets
Words by Megan C. Hills
April 28 is a momentuous day in social media history – six years ago to the day, former Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls accidentally tweeted his own name from his Twitter account and a holiday was born. Users all over the social media platform have erupted in celebration of Ed Balls Day 2017 and the hashtag #edballsday has been trending all morning.
Just heard someone ask, "Why is #EdBallsDay a thing?". So sad that people are forgetting the true meaning behind our festivals.
— Ed Lawrence (@ed_lawrence_) April 28, 2017
Spare a thought for the people who are spending today alone, and the brave emergency services staff who have to work on #EdBallsDay
— Dr Paul Coxon (@paulcoxon) April 28, 2017
Happy #edballsday everybody! Hope everyone's centre-left stockings have been filled with moderate gifts #edballs pic.twitter.com/DQWcjVA85A
— Ben Powick (@NEEChamberBen) April 28, 2017
Ed Balls, who has yet to tweet about his hallowed day this morning, made the mistake while trying to type his own name into the search bar to see what people were saying about him. The tweet quickly spread like wildfire and has since racked up over 89,000 retweets and 56,000 likes at the time of this article’s publication, a number which continues to spike every year. While it isn’t going to go down as the best way to use social media, the tweet has brought joy to families far and wide annually.
Ed Balls
— Ed Balls (@edballs) April 28, 2011
The former politician has since taken the holiday in stride, even going as far as to bake an Ed Balls Day cake of his own tweet for his wife last year.
Good grief.. but how could I say No? RT @YvetteCooperMP We've insisted he bake a cake. How else would you celebrate? pic.twitter.com/tfm7aKTLIs
— Ed Balls (@edballs) April 28, 2016
Thanks to Ed Balls’ stint on Strictly Come Dancing, there’s also been no shortage of tweets featuring gifs of the former politician cutting a rug today.
Deck the halls with glitterballs! It's #edballsday ! pic.twitter.com/4uYzp4aowW
— BBC Strictly✨ (@bbcstrictly) April 28, 2017
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Happy Ed Balls Day, one and all. May your social media fails be nearly as glorious.
Ed Balls.
