KTLAJust before 6:30 a.m. this morning, L.A. got a special wakeup call (or "WAKE THE HELL UP" call, as it were) courtesy of a 4.4-magnitude earthquake. The quake traveled 150 miles, but caused no major damage. It was just "par for the course," as one specialist noted.
Welcome to California.
Los Angeles residents stopped, dropped and tweeted, as we are all taught to do in emergency situations. If you follow a handful of L.A.-ers, here are the tweets that you probably saw today:
The Celebrity Who Just Tweets "#EARTHQUAKE"
Earthquake #own #wheresOprahwhenyouneedher #?? http://t.co/OTc4Zqkt6Q
? Lindsay Lohan (@lindsaylohan) March 17, 2014Absolutely pointless: The famous person who felt the earthquake and has nothing to contribute to the conversation except #earthquake. No reaction. No little anecdote. But they want to tweet! They want to be a part of post-earthquake Twitter!
So... #earthquake.
The saddest part is they will still get retweeted. Which brings us to...
The Regular Person Who Retweets "#EARTHQUAKE"
Like above, but even more useless. If that's possible.
The Person Who Thought They Were the Only One Who Felt It
OMG! Did anyone just feel that Earthquake? So scary, woke me up out of an already scary nightmare. I hate earthquakes. :(
? Paris Hilton (@ParisHilton) March 17, 2014Maybe this is meant as a rhetorical question, but here's an easy rule of thumb: If an earthquake is strong enough to wake you from a dead sleep, someone else probably felt it. You can skip the question and answer portion of the program. Just scroll down.
The Person Who Just Wants You to Know They Felt It Too
HOLY F*CK. I JUST FELT THAT ONE.
#Quake
? Retta (@unfoRETTAble) March 17, 2014You felt it. You felt it ALL. And you want everyone you know to know that you (YOU!) lived through an earthquake. This is the most emotional of all quake tweets. It's a knee-jerk tweet of survival. But you're also going to be the person who won't stop talking about it at the office. Which, OK. Calm down. Everyone is fine.
The Numbers Guy
Close, my app says 4.7 and it was under Skirball center. RT @bewmm: @kellyoxford that one felt like a 5.2.
? kelly oxford (@kellyoxford) March 17, 2014This person doesn't care where you were or how you feel about the earthquake. They want the magnitude. They want the epicenter. They want to pour over the seismographs and remind you that this wasn't The Big One. Yet.
The Person Who Thinks It's a Sign
Good morning, California! That was Me.
? God (@TheTweetOfGod) March 17, 2014Maybe it's a sign that a higher power is angry with the world and is giving us a warning quake before s/he unleashes their full wrath of fire and plagues, so on and so forth. Maybe it's a sign that you should get out of bed and get to McDonald's before breakfast hours end.
The Jokester
"I'm in New York but I still felt it in my own way"- Anne Hathaway
? billy eichner (@billyeichner) March 17, 2014This person has at least four earthquake-related jokes saved in their drafts for just this occasion.
Just wait until the next time it rains. They've got some really great material prepared for that too.