Digital Horse: How equestrians use social media
Social media is helping equine enthusiasts connect in unprecedented ways. Holly Powell hones in on a few of the leading trends.
From Holly:
It’s hard to believe there is any section of society that isn’t involved with social media now; farmers are on Facebook, astronauts are tweeting in space, and even the prime minister and the president of America make time to engage on social media. That means it’s really no surprise that horse riders are embracing social media too! It’s likely because social media sites are the perfect place for creating communities, and online horse riders can meet others who experience the same problems, thoughts and opinions as themselves!
Here are examples of just a few of the ways horse riders are embracing social media:
#equestrianproblems
Twitter hashtags are a great way of joining in a big conversation, and the tag #equestrianproblems is no different. It’s quite regularly updated with plenty of horse riders adding their complaints and woes for when it comes to riding. If you’re the equestrian sort, you might find many of these tweets extremely relatable. Problems that most often come up include not having matching gear, hairy moulting horses, horses that won’t do as they’re told, and accidentally spending too much money on your horse and being subsequently poor.
Hairy jodhpurs are a major equestrian problem.
@Weird Horse
Another equestrian Twitter phenomenon is @WeirdHorse, it’s an account run by… a weird horse. Weird Horse likes to tweet bad jokes and musings from his daily life, much to the delight of his almost 200,000 followers. It must be amusing to riders to experience how their horse would use Twitter; our personal favourite tweet from @WeirdHorse is “I just walked up to a bush and neighed.” – We suppose, this is in fact what horses do.
Youtube is a great social media platform for horse riders, it’s great for showing off what your horse can do, and for learning new tricks and techniques. Alternatively, sometimes it’s also for showing the sillier side of the horsing world! In this video avid horse rider Kyle plans out a spectacular marriage proposal for his girlfriend, which also involves their horse Jackson, who is more than happy to be part of the celebrations.
In this video we meet Einstein, the world’s smallest foal. Horse riders are no exception to the rule when it comes to “cute stuff on the internet,” proven by the fact this horse video has over 3.2 million views! Einstein has grown up now, to just 24 inches tall, and he’s still famous in the equestrian world.
Horse riders have even invaded Pinterest! It’s no surprise, as it’s actually a great space to share everything horse related, from the horse tack you’re coveting, to the dream horse breed you’ve always wanted. Horse Lovers Unite is a Pinterest account that has gotten creative with its boards and compiled a collection of horse humour:
http://pinterest.com/horselovrsunite/horse-related-humor/
The board supplies a constant stream of relatable horse humour to over 500 horse-loving followers, and we guarantee it will leave any rider chuckling for hours!
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This guest post was contributed by Holly Powell a huge fan of the countryside and of course, Twitter, on behalf of Ptarmigan.
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