{"id":60041,"date":"2013-12-19T13:31:02","date_gmt":"2013-12-19T09:31:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/?p=60041"},"modified":"2013-12-19T13:31:02","modified_gmt":"2013-12-19T09:31:02","slug":"how-david-camerons-oil-painting-look-a-like-put-me-at-the-centre-of-a-twitter-viral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/en\/?p=60041","title":{"rendered":"How David Cameron’s oil painting look-a-like put me at the centre of a Twitter viral"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"o_864257\"<\/p>\n

I absentmindedly posted a picture of an oil painting that looked the Prime Minister – the next thing I know it’s spread around the world, writes student Sophie Gadd<\/p>\n

Yesterday I was awoken by a frantic phone call from my mother telling me I was on page three of The Daily Mail.<\/p>\n

That may rank as one of the most terrifying ways to wake up, after fire alarms and falling out of bed.<\/p>\n

My appearance on page three was not the result of me taking my clothes off, but the culmination of 24 hours of viral social media, and it happened like this.<\/p>\n

While visiting an admittedly quite boring Berlin museum with a friend, I spotted a painting of a woman who looked remarkably like David Cameron, right down to the receding hairline, jowls and cherubic cheeks.<\/p>\n

I absentmindedly posted it on Twitter expecting a few replies<\/p>\n

But nothing could prepare me for how quickly the picture spread.<\/p>\n

On Twitter it began with hundreds of people retweeting it, and messaging me to say that it was Catherine the Great.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s this point during a\u00a0viral Twitter storm\u00a0that notifications have to be disabled, for fear that your phone may explode.<\/p>\n

This phase was followed by lots of horse jokes – there are many myths about Catherine and strange \u201cincidents\u201d with horses.<\/p>\n

The wave of sceptical truthers came barraging in next, claiming everything from Photoshop, to face-swap, to the fact that it was in fact a painting of David Cameron.<\/p>\n

I was slightly taken aback by the accusation I might spend my holidays editing photographs of the Prime Minister. Well, everyone needs a hobby.<\/p>\n

I hadn\u2019t submitted it to the press, yet in less than a day the picture found its way onto websites, the papers, radio, and TV.<\/p>\n

It is an incredibly surreal experience for an average politics student to find their name appearing in the news, having not really done much at all.<\/p>\n

This must be one of the laziest ways anyone has got press coverage in 2013. Typical student.<\/p>\n

In the last few weeks there have been a few pictures circulating on the internet of teachers holding up signs saying they wanted to teach their pupils how quickly an image can\u00a0spread online\u00a0.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t take this seriously myself until it took less than 24 hours for my picture to get from Twitter to a national newspaper.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s slightly nerve wracking reading an op-ed piece on a newspaper website discussing what could\u2019ve been a passing comment in the pub.<\/p>\n

It is also strange to think that Cameron himself has probably been made aware of the picture, since it could make up quite a jibe in PMQs. This has certainly made me more cautious about tweeting nonsense.<\/p>\n

Just as I thought the storm had died down, The Spectator discovered David Cameron is in fact actually distantly related to Catherine the Great.<\/p>\n

So what I thought was a funny observation actually turned out to reveal a new blue-blooded relative for\u00a0our man of the people\u00a0. Maybe I should go to museums more often!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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