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If you're on Twitter, then you would have noticed the sudden influx of tweets with the hashtag #yorais through out the better part of yesterday evening. This time however, the hastag invasion had nothing to do with the mischievous peeps from 4Chan, but instead, was the result of a disgruntled group of Malaysian internet users who used Twitter to vent their disbelief in response to comments made by Malaysian Information, Communications, Culture and Arts Minister Datuk Seri Rais Yatim that said "Twitter and Facebook are tools of the West that can erode Malaysian culture".

As with all things viral, the hashtag caught on like wildfire and propelled the Minister to instant Internet celebrity status. So much so, that the #yorais tag made it's way to the number 3 position on Twitter's global trending topics list - overtaking more serious discussions like those focused around the Haiti earthquake (Haiti) and Kraft's takeover of Cadbury (Kraft, Cadbury).

A quick check today though, shows that the hashtag has disappeared from the top 10 list. The aftermath however, has been summed up pretty well by some of our local bloggers (spinzer, icednyor, timothyteoh, cheechingy, tjunkie - links from bongkersz) and more detailed analytics of the hashtag's rise to stardom can be found here (http://tinyurl.com/yholn26). Heck, even our national daily, The Star (http://tinyurl.com/yz6s6zh) posted a piece on the incident, so you know it's legit (well, almost).

What are your thoughts on the #yorais invasion? Please do share them with us in the comment box.