The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

-d -h -min -sec

Author

By John McCarthy | Opinion Editor

August 21, 2014 | 6 min read

Tens of thousands of Twitter users secured the Scottish Independence debate as the UK's top-trending subject on Thursday after a group of Edinburgh-based yes-voting artists launched a YouTube video using ‘#yesbecause’.

The social media platform was inundated with users giving their unique views on the union using the hashtag kickstarted by the artists who said they were keen on “arguing the positive case for Scottish independence and imagining a better Scotland."

On Wednesday, a day before the discussion went viral, ‘#yesbecause’ received over 23,000 mentions, a number that will be dwarfed when Thursday's figures are released.

One prominent tweet was from Dr Brooke Magnati, also known as Belle De Jour, who gave her reasons for voting yes: "I only became a citizen last year. The independence referendum is going to be my first vote here and the most significant thing I’ve ever voted in during my entire life.

"I think Scotland should be its own country... because it so obviously already is. Maybe I’m biased, born as I was in the US where we celebrate our revolution, where children in school learn about the enlightenment values that shaped our independence. Values that were, let’s not forget, very heavily influenced by Scottish thinkers."

The online campaign also spawned '#nobecause' which was used 581 times on Wednesday - although it did appear afterwards in response to the opposing hashtag.

Nonetheless, '#nobecause' was hijacked by yes voters to mock no voters in a sarcastic manner.

A Yes Scotland group's Vine showed the volume of tweets from both hashtags. The majority of comments used '#yesbecause'.

This comes after former BBC general director Lord Birt said that Scotland would have to pay the price to access the broadcaster's quality content if it was to become an independent state.