Disney Fans United: Honoring Austin on Twitter
July 9, 2009
I honestly believe that the Disney community is one of the best on Twitter. We’re all friends in the happy community, always willing to help each other out, and always ready to make someone’s day a little better.
I was amazed at such a wonderful community effort when @DisneyFrankness suggested that we attempt to make the #Austin hashtag a trending topic, in honor of Austin Wenneberg, the monorail pilot who passed away in the tragic accident involving two monorails colliding.
After almost two days of putting #Austin at the end of all our posts – it worked! #Austin became a trending topic for about two hours. We honored a man who was passionate about his job, ready to help others, and always doing anything to make guests’ trips as magical as he could.
If I remember correctly, I believe I rode up front with Austin once, and I distinctly remember him telling us cool facts regarding the monorails and such. He put a smile on my face, as I’m sure he did for many others. He took pride in his job – something that deserves being honored.
In fact, should we make this an annual tradition? I think every July 5 we should add #Austin to the end of our tweets. Not so much to make him a trending topic, but simply to remember and honor a person who made our visits magical.
THE AUSTIN BADGE. If you would like to honor Austin on your blog, Disney related or not, for the pride he took in his job & smiles he brought to many faces, click here. By Jahfer.
Entry Filed under: Articles. Tags: #Austin, Austin Wenneberg, Disney, Disney World, hero, honoring austin, logo, magic kingdom, monorail, Monorail accident, monorail driver, orlando, park, parks, pilot, station, The Austin Badge, theme park, themepark, trending topic, twitter, Walt Disney World, Walt Disney World Resort, WDW.
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1.
Tony | July 14, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Was interested in placing “In Honor of Austin” banner on my site. But when I downloaded it, I discovered it was a PNG file. I would need to convert it to a JPEG or GIF in order to use it, but my version of Photoshop can’t even open the PNG. Any alternate versions of the banner available?
2.
Matt | July 14, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Tony,
I can get you an alternate version as another file. In the mean time, is it possible to not download/upload the badge and simple use HTML to put it on your site?
If that would work I recommend that option. Let me know!
3.
Tony | July 15, 2009 at 7:29 am
I’d be happy to use the HTML version. Thank you!
4.
Tony | July 15, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Never mind Matt, I got it to work. (Copied the image -instead of saving it – and pasted it into a file type I could use.)
5.
Matt | July 15, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Great – glad you got it to work! It looks great on your site, thanks for supporting/remembering Austin.
6.
Clare Swindlehurst | August 28, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Just wondered whether we were extending the honors to the other cast members who tragically lost their lives in recent weeks?
7.
Matt | August 28, 2009 at 5:39 pm
Of course everyone is mourning the loss of the two other cast members, and here at WDW Central it is no different.
However, it seems the Austin Tribute was a one time thing – no one on Twitter has made an attempt like we did for Austin.
Main reason being (I think) the first one is the worst. Not that we get immune to deaths and don’t care, just that it seems that the first major death is even worse – and I made such a big deal of Austin on here because I actually rode with him once.
If we did this for every Disney CM that passed away, it wouldn’t be as special, you know?
8.
WDW’s Purple and Pink Monorails Combine and Become Teal « WDW Central | October 17, 2009 at 3:10 pm
[...] two colors that were involved in the accident, Pink and Purple, are retired out of respect for Austin Wuennenberg, his family, and the other cast member involved in this terrible [...]