Analysis: VMAs push Miley Cyrus social buzz to a high... and a low

They say there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but is there such a thing as bad social buzz? Miley Cyrus’ twerk seen round the world certainly caused a stir at Sunday night’s MTV Video Music Awards, but the fleshy show-stopper featuring grinding teddy bears and Robin Thicke earned the former tween queen a stark mix of both praise and resentment.

EW has partnered with General Sentiment to develop an aggregate score report — not just on what is trending in social media — but on what users are actually saying on social networks about any particular topic at a particular time, in this case Miley Cyrus over the past week.

In the heat of the moment Sunday night, Cyrus’ positive sentiment score hit its highest level and the volume of tweets about her was on the rise. But those playing Monday morning quarterback on Twitter sent the anti-Miley chatter to its highest levels, causing her sentiment score to plummet. The volume of chatter about Cyrus and her performance continued to rise on Monday, even as the content of those conversations became increasingly negative.

Check out the HIT score below.

The words and phrases used to describe Cyrus ranged from the positive – “#votemiley” (28,562 instances) and “sexy” (18,507 instances) to the downright vitriolic – “bitch” (20,878 instances) and “bad” (52,489 instances) and “hate” (40,929 instances).

How many of those making derogatory comments the next morning actually watched the VMA performance in full? That we can’t answer. But Cyrus seems to have had the last laugh as far as reach is concerned. She tweeted her response to the haters Monday morning: