Grammys 2013: Jay-Z joke, Rihanna top social media buzz

By Wesley Lowery

Feb. 11, 2013 12 AM PT

Millions of tweets and Facebook posts flooded the Internet during Sunday night’s Grammy Awards, but despite a slew of live performances, the moment that earned the most online buzz was an onstage joke.

According Networked Insights, a social media analytics firm, the show’s most popular moment -- at least for Twitter users -- occurred while Jay-Z, The-Dream and Frank Ocean were onstage accepting the Grammy for rap/sung collaboration.

Jay-Z leaned to the mike and said, “I want to thank the swap meet for his hat,” mocking The-Dream’s headgear: a “parental advisory” beanie topped with a Boyz N the Hood cap.

The joke generated 116,400 tweets per minute, the most of any Grammy moment, according to Networked Insights.

Other spikes in Twitter traffic took place during Rihanna’s solo performance (114,800 tweets per minute), Prince’s announcement of Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know” as record of the year (109,400 tweets per minute) and Fun.’s triumph in the hotly contested best new artist category (100,600 tweets per minute).

Rihanna took the prize of most-talked-about-celebrity on Twitter, with more than 1.6 million tweets being sent mentioning her: no doubt, with many discussing her dress, her performance and her Grammy win for short form music video.

The other most-tweeted-about artists were singers Frank Ocean (more than 972,000 tweets), Taylor Swift (more than 946,000 tweets) and Ed Sheeran (more than 884,000 tweets).

Thousands of Twitter users chimed in using the official event hashtags -- which were frequently plugged by host LL Cool J -- with 146,690 tweets using the #GrammyLive hashtag and 149,410 using the #TheWorldisListening hashtag since Jan. 1.

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