Ewokalypse is a Twitter hashtag from May 2014 tied to Australian boy band 5 Seconds of Summer swapping their profile avatars for pictures of Star Wars Ewoks[3].

Where did Ewokalypse come from?

The band's official Twitter account posted the tag on May 22, 2014, about an hour after tweeting "Sooooo were all ewoks," as part of a coordinated avatar switch[3].

What does Ewokalypse mean?

It's a portmanteau of Ewok and apocalypse, used by 5SOS and their fans to frame the day the band "became" Ewoks on Twitter[1].

How do you use Ewokalypse?

Fans typically tweeted the tag with Ewok-themed jokes about the band or shared Photoshop edits pasting Ewok faces onto the four members[1].

Is Ewokalypse still popular?

No. It was a one-day Twitter spike that cleared 220,000 tweets in under 24 hours in May 2014 and faded once the avatar bit ended[3].

Ewokalypse

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Ewokalypse is a Twitter hashtag started by Australian pop-punk band 5 Seconds of Summer on May 22, 2014, after the group swapped their profile pictures to images of Ewoks from Star Wars. Fans piled on with derivative hashtags and Photoshopped edits that pasted Ewok faces onto the band members, pushing the tag past 220,000 tweets in under a day.

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Overview

Ewokalypse is a Twitter hashtag that Australian boy band 5 Seconds of Summer pushed out on May 22, 2014 as a tribute to the Ewoks, the small mammal-like creatures from Star Wars1. The joke started when all four members swapped their Twitter avatars for pictures of Ewoks, then leaned into the bit with the tag itself.

What pushed it past a stunt was the fan response. Followers ran a Photoshop meme that pasted Ewok faces over the band members in group photos, and they spun off spinoff tags for renaming 5SOS songs with the word Ewok in them3. The whole thing lived and died inside a two-day window on Twitter.

How It Spread

The fan machine moved fast. At 9:57 AM EST, Twitter user Espinosafthemmo posted #Replace5SOSSongsWithEwok, asking fans to rewrite the band's song titles with the word Ewok jammed in, and that tag hit around 3,700 tweets inside two days4.

Once the band posted #EWOKALYPSE and #RISEOFTHEEWOK14 late that morning, the numbers jumped. #EWOKALYPSE cleared 220,000 tweets in under 24 hours, and #RISEOFTHEEWOK14 pulled more than 36,000 in the same window3. Alongside the hashtags, fans traded Photoshopped edits that dropped Ewok faces onto Ashton, Calum, Michael and Luke in existing press photos1.

The trend was a one-day burst. It never crossed over off Twitter into a lasting format, and traffic on the tag dropped off once the coordinated avatar bit ended.

How to Use This Meme

Participation typically meant one of two things: tweeting with #EWOKALYPSE while riffing on Star Wars or 5SOS lyrics, or posting a Photoshop edit that swapped a band member's face for an Ewok's. The related tag #Replace5SOSSongsWithEwok followed a common convention of dropping the word Ewok into a real 5SOS song title (for example, turning "She Looks So Perfect" into an Ewok pun) and posting the result4.

Frequently Asked Questions

References (5)