The Brazil 2014 World Cup Semi-Finals devastated an entire nation with Brazil exiting the competition in a record breaking loss. As the nation wept for their loss, Chinese social media’s biggest channel, Weibo, was plugged in.
Not only did the match’s hashtag ‘#Brazil vs Germany#’ get exposed to over 260 million users, but the match was mentioned 1.8 million times in the 24 hours encompassing the fixture. The result even saw the development of another hashtag that went viral, #Brazil Weeps#, which was viewed by over 32 million users and discussed by over 87,000. Although the argentina vs. Holland match did not live up to the drama of the previous night’s final, there was still a huge reaction online. The match was mentioned over 421,000 times and generated an exposure of over 220 million people.
So Germany’s crushing 7-1 defeat of Brazil did not just spark support for the German team and its players, who are arguably the most popular national football association, but also evoked sympathy for the heartbroken host nation.