Last week’s trending topic (as many of you are aware) was #unwantedsuperhero and — for the first time in the history of this 3 month old blog — this week’s trending topic is a sequel! The obvious choice here is would be something about unwanted super villains, but all villains are unwanted! I also thought about “wanted villains” but that just sounds like they’re wanted men, which most villains are that too. Anyways… this week’s topic is — #desirablevillains — bad guys who have powers that you wouldn’t mind having to face. Either through pun or your own creation, play along on Twitter and remember to use the hashtag #desirablevillains!

P. S. If this blog post gets retweeted by 100 or more different people over the next 24-hours, I’ll send $40(!) to whomever I think tweets the funniest tweet with the hashtag #desirablevillains on it.

Today’s trending topic is #unwantedsuperhero. You can play along by tweeting a super hero (either by name or power) that no one wants, along with the hashtag #unwantedsuperhero.

P. S. I’ll keep adding this incentive until the goal is reached: If this blog post gets retweeted by 100 or more different people over the next 24-hours, I’ll send $40(!) to whomever I think tweets the funniest tweet with the hashtag #unwantedsuperhero.

P. P. S. You may have noticed I’ve been doing this at varying times each week and that’s because I’m trying to figure out the best time to do it. If anyone has any suggestions, please leave them in the comments section.

This week’s trending topic is — #tiatm — which is short for Trip In A Time Machine, based on a joke in my stand up act (which you should come see). You can play along by tweeting something you’d do if you had a trip in a time machine along with the hashtag #tiatm.

As I did last week, an added incentive: If this blog post gets retweeted by 100 or more different people over the next 24-hours, I’ll send $40(!) to whomever I think tweets the tweet with #tiatm.

Let’s try another weak attempt at creating a trending topic! As you probably know by now, this is only for people on Twitter, but it’s never too late to join.

This idea came along the other day when I was at the bar with friends Kevin Lyons and Ryan Staples (among others). We made up a game where we would invent potential Halloween costumes that were a mashup of a Star Wars character’s name and something (anything) else. I thought this would make a fun game for Twitter, so here we are. For example, a popular one we came up with was Luke Skywalker Texas Ranger, a cross between Luke Skywalker and Walker Texas Ranger.

Give it a shot and make sure your mashups and retweets have the hashtag #starwarsmashup in them so I can keep track of all the Twittering (which, by the way, “so I can keep track of all the Twittering” is easily the saddest thing I’ve ever said, my apologies).

P.S. As an added incentive, if this blog post gets retweeted by 100 or more different people today, I’ll send $40(!) to whomever I think tweets the funniest mash-up. I can promise this partially because I don’t think it’ll happen and partially because it would be really cool if it did.

In case you missed it, last week I dropped the news that every Tuesday I would try to come up with a new trending topic on Twitter. Well, I’m going a little zany on this first one, but today’s hashtag is: #RhinoOrUnicorn (as in rhinoceros or unicorn). Do what you’d like with it, but get out there and start tweeting tweets using #RhinoOrUnicorn!

A couple of ideas to get you started:

• Reasons why you’d rather own one horned animal over the other
• Comparing people/things to either subject (unicorn = majestic, rhino = powerful, etc.)
• Fan fiction! Stories about rhinos vs. unicorns

Enjoy! I’ll be retweeting my favorites.

Twitter gets a bad rap sometimes because it seems unnecessary and a lot of the time it is. Though it can be useful too, especially in identifying breaking news or cultural trends. This is what makes trending topics on Twitter one of the most fascinating parts of the website.

The trending topics are the most talked about ideas on Twitter at the moment, ranked regionally all the way from worldwide down to countries and cities. Trending topics can be formed just based on the content of a tweet, but the most common way of marking a tweet as part of a trending topic is the hashtag. One of my favorites topics/hashtags (although an old one) is #firstworldproblems, which is how people can identify their not-so-important problems. It doesn’t have the momentum now to be a top 10 topic in any region, but if I think of a funny one, I’ll post it anyways.

Now, I didn’t just write all this up because I’m in love with Twitter or anything. I bring it up because I want to have a little fun with it. I think, given enough tries, I could get a topic to trend (at least in some region). So, starting next Tuesday and every Tuesday afterwards (for as long as I feel like it), I’m going to propose a new hashtag. I’ll make a post here with the new hashtag and a brief explanation of what’s going on, but I won’t get too specific so people will be creative about it. I hope you’ll all join me on Twitter and come back next week for the details!