What is a Candystorm?

A candystorm is the opposite of a shitstorm. The term is formed from the English words candy and storm. In the German-speaking world, a candystorm refers to a wave of approval and sympathy in social media.The term candystorm was first used in Germany on November 12, 2012, by German politician Volker Beck in a Twitter tweet. He used it to describe a wave of approval for the then Green Party leader Claudia Roth.In November 2012, members of the Bündnis 90/Die Grünen party used a primary election to choose their top candidates for the 2013 federal election.Claudia Roth, the party's incumbent leader at the time, came in only fourth with a 26.2 percent share of the vote. The result, which was disappointing for her, gave rise to speculation about her resignation from the party chairmanship, for which a new election was imminent. Claudia Roth's sympathizers then spoke out on the short message service Twitter with encouragement and appreciation, and on November 11, 2012, Green Party politician Volker Beck used the term candystorm to describe this movement of encouragement and the "opposite of a shitstorm" with his appeal for a "candystorm for Claudia" on Twitter, the first time this had been used in the public German-speaking world. On November 12, 2012, Roth declared that she would run for re-election as party chair. At the federal delegates' conference on Nov. 17, 2012, alluding to the candystorm, delegates threw candy at her at the end of her candidacy speech and she was confirmed in office in the subsequent election with a result of 88.5 percent of the vote. Roth said: "I was particularly touched by a candystorm in which I was directly asked to run for office, because I had never experienced this before. Numerous German-language media reported on the newly defined Internet phenomenon, for which terms such as Flausch, Flauschstorm and Lovestorm had already been used in German-language Internet jargon. The term became established in the media science discussion.Sources: http://wifimaku.com, Wikipedia