Sniper Backlash Bears Down On Twitter

(AP) Los Angeles CA, January 22 – Based on forecast models, social media meteorologists are predicting an unprecedented outbreak of cultural backlash that could create a perfect storm come Oscar night February 22nd.

A significant cluster of backlash first developed post-Oscar nominations when Ava DuVernay’s “Selma” was passed over for nominations in several major categories, purportedly due to its lack of veracity for historical accuracy regarding the presentation of President Lyndon Baines Johnson. After a few days of heated conversation on the Internet, however, the backlash for “Selma” was downgraded from Trending On Twitter to Lameazoid Maureen Dowd Article. While dissipating, however, the moisture of the “Selma” backlash was still prominent, and “that’s the key,” says Myron Plotz, associate director at the National Backlash Research Institute (NBRI) in Oceanside, California.

“You had all the remnants of this backlash still floating above, for lack of a better term, the information super highway,” Plotz explained, “while a system of high pressure backlash for ‘American Sniper’ was, unbeknownst to most, just beginning to form.” That backlash centered around the complaints of so-called “yahoos in Oklahoma”, a term coined by Salon.com film critic Andrew O’Hehir to describe the same type of people who tore down LA Weekly film critic Amy Nicholson last year for failing to honor the heroes of Peter Berg’s “Lone Survivor” even though she referred to them as “heroes” in her review.

That high pressure system then collided with a low pressure system of backlash forming from those dismissing “American Sniper” as jingoist propaganda with stars & stripes crust. “Essentially,” explains Plotz, “it was a social media extratropical cyclone. And when the remaining backlash from ‘Selma’ became caught up in that ‘American Sniper’ extratropical cyclone, it exploded.”

Plotz sees the forthcoming 2015 Oscar season as perhaps the most hectic ever. “I don’t want to say it was a perfect storm,” Plotz notes, “because we’ve seen those sorts of levels of atmospheric Internet disturbance before. What we haven’t seen is a rupturing of the social networking crust.” You mean, like a volcano? “Exactly. Think if ‘American Sniper’ actually wins Best Picture. Twitter might literally erupt.” Here's to hoping.