Story of #MeToo, on its 1 year completion

NP NEWS 24 ONLINE – Can you believe it that #MeToo is now one year old? In 2017, American actor Alyssa Milano posted a tweet that triggered what has since come to be known as the #MeToo wave — the standing-up and speaking-out by women who have suffered sexual harassment or assault at the hands of men around the world. Later on, it was not just for women against men but became women against women, women against men, men against men as well.

As the #MeToo movement completed a year on Monday, here are some unknown and interesting facts about the campaign that has spread worldwide. Interestingly, the seeds of the campaign were sowed in 2006 by an activist. The movement has now been making waves in India, with the first explosion in the entertainment and news industries.

1. Tarana Burke is the real face of the #MeToo campaign. An African-American civil rights activist, Burke started the campaign way back in 2006. Burke originally coined the term “me too” while talking to a girl who revealed that her mother’s boyfriend had been sexually abusing her. To empathize with her and other victims of abuse, she said, “You’re not alone. This happened to me too.” Burke then penned the story about the girl. Read the story here.

2. MeToo became a global phenomenon on 15 October 2017 with this one tweet of Hollywood actress Alyssa Milano who requested victims of sexual assault to speak out. She wrote: “If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted write ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet.”

Milano’s tweet came 10 days after The New York Times published a sensational report that leveled serious charges of sexual misconduct against famous Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for this report. Soon, women from across the world started sharing their experiences on social media with MeToo hashtag.

3. According to Pew Research, until September 30 this year, the #MeToo hashtag was already used more than 19 million times on Twitter in the just English language, which comes to an average of 55,319 per day. The single largest number of mention was on September 9, when Leslie Moonves, chairman, and chief executive of CBS, resigned amid allegations of sexual misconduct.

4. The Pew Research concluded that mainly two kinds of #MeToo interactions existed. The first involved celebrities or the entertainment industry, and the second was personal stories. Put together, 29 percent of all interactions on #MeToo were either about entertainment industry or personal sagas. About 71 percent of #MeToo tweets were in the English language.

5. Google has created a dedicated website, MeTooRising, on search trends on MeToo across the world. It shows cities, where the campaign trended on different dates along with current results — and India, is shining brightly right now (see photo above). According to Google, MeToo has been searched in all the 195 countries in the world within the past one year.

6. In India, MeToo campaign started picking up around 7 October when actor Tanushree Dutta made serious allegations against Nana Patekar recounting her experiences during the shoot of the film, Horn OK Please, 10 years ago. Since then, the controversy has engulfed many famous and important personalities, including Union minister MJ Akbar against whom 11 women have leveled allegations.

7. MeToo is still among the most searched terms on Google in India. On Sunday (October 14), of the top 10 searches in India, four were related to allegations of sexual misconduct and MeToo. Searches included Vinod Dua, Kate Sharma, MJ Akbar, and Ira Trivedi. On Monday too, writer Chetan Bhagat and yoga expert Ira Trivedi was among top trending. Results can be seen here

8. MeToo movement gained momentum on Twitter and picked up on Facebook. However, it is also one of the most discussed topics on Instagram with more than 15 lakh posts.