Beyonce may have delivered solidly, and the Ravens-49ers game provided its dramatic moments, but the blackout at Super Bowl XLVII was the one topic that had the Twitter world buzzing.
Fans and players in attendance at the New Orleans Superdome on Sunday as well as millions of viewers at home were left in the dark--literally--when a massive power outage temporarily caused a power outage that stopped game play for several minutes in the third quarter of the most watched NFL game of the 2012 season.
Officials blamed the outage on an "abnormality" in the power system which triggered an automatic shutdown and forced the building's backup systems to kick in.
Meanwhile, on Twitter, fans were exploding with comments on the blackout--some even joking about a conspiracy.
"Yes, we turned the lights off at the #Superbowl," tweeted a user with the handle "The Illuminati."
Actress Mindy Kaling, formerly of "The Office", tweeted, "The blackout was twitter's Super Bowl" damn girl."
"PEOPLE OF GOTHAM," tweeted user "attackerman," referring to a scene in the summer blockbuster "The Dark Knight Rises" where Bane interrupted a live football game in Gotham City before taking the entire city hostage.
"Super Bowl blackout? Unbelievable. Maybe now the 49ers can score," tweeted CNN "Reliable Sources" host Howard Kurtz during the game.
He wasn't wrong. The 49ers, who were trailing by 22 points at 28-6 when the lights went out near the top of the third quarter, surged to come back to within two points of the eventual champion Ravens before an incomplete pass from San Francisco's quarterback Colin Kaepernick in their final drive with under two minutes remaining sealed Baltimore's win.
"In hindsight, maybe installing The Clapper was a bad idea," tweeted Nick Toplass.
"I could care less about the super bowl...but I'm really into totalblackout..its soo funny...pa ha ha," tweeted Karli Hasinski.
"This is the same strategy San Francisco used to win the 1989 World Series," wrote Philip Bump, referring to the classic 1989 series between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics, during which an earthquake rocked the San Francisco area and postponed Game 3 of the series. The Athletics swept the series 4-0.
And in other news, Oreo may have been the biggest winner of all during the Super Bowl ad wars when they tweeted an ad for their cookies during the black out. "You can still dunk in the dark," read the picture on their official Twitter account.
"What Oreo did last night was glorious," tweeted Mike Hayes, a social media editor at Buzzfeed.
Twitter user Jesse Soloff agreed, tweeting, "Give Oreo social media team a raise."
- Contribute to this Story:
- Send us a tip
- Send us a photo or video
- Suggest a correction
