Wurst — Eurovision’s best — spreads joy
Tweet analysis shows happiness uptick after cross-dresser’s win
Conchita Wurst’s unexpected Eurovision Song Contest victory in Copenhagen spread happiness across Europe, Australian researchers say.
Using a mood-mapping tool that analyzes language used on Twit- ter, the researchers noted a sharp increase in the frequency of words including “amazing,” “surprising,” “funny” and “weird” across Europe in the hours after the bearded Austrian cross-dresser became victor.
Conchita Wurst is the stage name and persona adopted by Thomas (Tom) Neuwirth for his transves- tite stage act. The Danish president called Wurst’s win a victory for tolerance in Europe.
The online tool, called We Feel, analyzes up to 32,000 tweets per minute for 600 words that are then linked to emotions such as love, joy, surprise, anger, sadness and fear. The researchers compared the upbeat language used throughout Europe over the “ecstatic” Eurovision winner with the “fear” that was shown by Twitter users in Australia after their government announced details of the new federal budget. “Contrast that fear with the joy of Eurovision the previous weekend,” they wrote.
The tool was developed by Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), to map moods around the world and within countries, to help direct and improve the allocation of mental health services.
The data captured will “ultimately predict when and where potentially life-saving services are re- quired,” said Helen Christensen, the director of Australia’s Black Dog Institute, which researches and treats mood disorders such a depression.
The large volume of data from Twitter is analyzed with the support of CSIRO and Amazon’s remote computing services.