Guest Post by: Charlie Osmond
Dannii Minogue, an X-Factor judge, lost her mind for a minute. Twitter and the social web went wild. Could the speed of this feedback help Simon Cowell and his team define the appropriate response?
danni minogue x-factor judge
A few million people tuned into X-Factor this evening. It was set to be just another night for the long-running, highly repetitive singing contest. But Dannii Minogue, one of the judges may have changed all that. In a lapse of judgement Dannii brought up Danyl Johnson’s sexuality when she was meant to be commenting on his performance.
I’m not about to join the debate on what she did or didn’t do by bringing this up. I suspect she meant no malice and it was merely a stupid error. What I found interesting was the speed at which I found myself reaching for Twitter to gauge the public’s reaction. And clearly thousands of other people did the same thing.
Dannii Minogue immediately became a trending topic on Twitter. In fact so did Dani and Danni and Danii. The debate kicked off:
- “MAJOR gay insult said by danni minouge [sic]. everyones talking in the uk. bad move dani.”@PerezHilton
- “I think she made a very pro-gay comment” @antonycotton
- “Dannii did NOT out Danyl. He did it himself weeks ago in the News of the World!”@DanWooton
- “Nobody should care what Dannii said!!”@AlecLamb”
- “Time to start a get-Dannii-out campaign. You with me?”@lutra_lismo
- “Dannii did nothing wrong. People are blowing this way out of proportion” @Miss_KimberlyJ
Within minutes there were videos up on YouTube. Not just a clip from the show but also people posting their own video responses. Bullying.co.uk posted a blog about it, The official X-Factor Twitter stream had retweeted it and people started to make up stories [as far as I can tell] about her almost getting sacked.
With my researcher hat on, this is fascinating. This slip has the potential to create another Shilpa Shetty scandal. That happened only 18 months ago however in the interveening time the adoption and use of Twitter has rocketed. As a result Simon Cowell and his team are able to gauge the mood of the audience before the night is out. They can then take the appropriate action based on some great insight.
That’s exactly what didn’t happen 18 months ago. Channel4 didn’t feel how angry people were and reacted too slowly. I suspect a bit of Twitter power will see Dannii making an apology in the near future and the whole thing blowing over within no time at all.
You may even be able to watch for Danni’s response by following her on Twitter: @danniiminogue
You can see her comment on the YouTube video below. From 2:50 mins.
PS I’d love to hear your comments. But please try to keep them to the media/social media reaction rather than the rights and wrongs of what she said.
Original Post: http://blog.freshnetworks.com/2009/10/dannii-danyl-and-instant-x-factor-feedback/
