BEIRUT: “Zina” caused a storm among Lebanese on social media networks Wednesday, as Facebook was inundated with pictures of cars buried under mounds of snow and gripping pictures of meter-high waves crashing into the railings of Beirut’s waterfront.
On Twitter, the hashtag, “#HowToKeepWarmInTheCold” topped the microblogging website’s trending list for Lebanon Wednesday.
There was clear humor in the approach to the storm, with users posting photos of people desperately clutching on to heaters. For others, pyromania was the way to go.
“Get all your diplomas, all your school books and all your notepads and set them on fire!” one Lebanese user tweeted.
Another user chose to point out Lebanon’s relative warmth when compared to the blistering cold of other countries. “Come on guys, what cold? The foreigners are laughing at us,” he tweeted.
Some users, however, went for a more serious approach.
“Think of those who don’t have electricity and fire. Think of the men in the Army and the resistance and you will stop being cold, or you will be ashamed of claiming that you are,” one user wrote.
Soldiers were not the only subjects of concern for the Lebanese, with the majority of posts warning of the plight of refugees who are facing freezing temperatures, heavy snow, hail, rain and thunderstorms.
Famous Lebanese Satirist Karl Sharro didn’t miss the opportunity to tie the weather to both politics and the general state of Lebanese paranoia. “If Lebanon were a novel it would be called ‘Waiting for the Storm,’” he tweeted.
But unanimous agreement over the harshness of the weather was clouded by ambiguity about to what to call the storm. Twitter users debated whether to refer to it as Zina, Zeina or Xena, while others joked about how in Jordan the same storm is called Huda.
“Not sure if its Xena but I know that she’s really angry,” one user said in reference to the television series Warrior Princess.
“It’s Zeina not Xena and it’s a storm not a Barbie,” tweeted Ahmad Yassine, the content producer at television channel LBC.
The storm also drew mixed reactions from users, with some tweeting #welcomeZeina, while others pleaded for it to blow over.
Former MP Jawad Boulos said he was grateful for the storm for one very particular reason – it was an excuse for talk show hosts to discuss something serious rather than coming up with their own means of directing national conversation.
“Somehow I prefer it when “Zeina” imprints the national conversation to when talk show hosts attempt to,” he said on his official Twitter page.
But for prominent Lebanese actress Nadine Nasib Njeim, the answer was not that easy.
“Everyone knows that I am in love with the rain but ... you’ve scandalized us Zeina.”
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