#080808 – An Olympic-sized Twitter Meme

Ba ba ba – as the crowds of Olympic spectators herd themselves into their seats for the opening ceremonies, the eights are everywhere.

As, by now, everyone’s likely aware – “eight” is an auspicious number in Chinese culture and it’s no coincidence that The Games are starting at 8:08:08 pm on 08/08/2008. The reason for this is that 8, å…« in Chinese, is pronounced bā – which is somewhat similar to the pronunciation of 发/fā, meaning “prosper” or “wealth”.

Drivers pay for license plates with 8s in them, businesses scramble to get lots of 8s in their phone numbers, couples wait to marry on days and times with 8s in them… it’s little surprise that the biggest Chinese event of the century would be designed to centre around the number.

In line with that, three Chinese bloggers (Flypig,
Webleon and Babechloe) have started an Olympic meme on Twitter called the #080808 tag campaign and it is spreading faster than doping rumours in the Olympic village.

The concept is simple – to show your support for the Games, just create yourself a little #080808 icon and tag your Twits with “#080808”. There’s even a graphic template you can use to create your #080808-ified avatar.

Here are some examples, as collected by YUKI.N: