As Oscar Pistorius' murder trial enters its third week, his "Rottweiler" defence lawyer - Barry Roux - is capturing social media imagination across the globe.
Pistorius is standing trial for shooting dead his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, on Valentine's Day last year. The case is - in a ground-breaking ruling - being partially transmitted live around the globe.
Apart from tweets, Facebook mentions and Internet stories, several memes have sprung up around Roux - widely regarded as one of SA's top defence advocates.
Among these are some ridiculing his interrogation of the first witness two weeks ago, during which he suggested Pistorius screamed like a girl, while others have him questioning who Chuck Norris is, saying he has never heard of "her".
A rap parody compiled by radio station 94.7 has also been doing the rounds.
Standalone 'icon'
Fuseware MD Mike Wronski says Roux has become a standalone cult figure and is getting his own story line on social media. He adds there have been around 80 000 mentions of Pistorius locally.
The social media monitoring company had expected Twitter mentions to hit at least 100 000 by the end of first week, making it by far the biggest social media event in SA this year. However, Twitter interactions show many people are fed up with the massive amount of coverage - which is available via broadcast and the Internet.
Despite the fatigue, the trial remains one of the most talked-about topics in social media, says business networking group 25AM. The group adds Roux is taking a lead role in social chatter about the Paralympian's murder trial, mostly due to his energetic courtroom style and merciless grilling of the prosecution's witnesses.
Using the Salesforce Radian6 social media monitoring tool, 25AM has determined that Roux has been mentioned in nearly four times as many social media posts as state prosecutor Gerrie Nel since the start of the trial.
"The mentions of Roux were among nearly 900 000 Oscar Pistorius-related social posts recorded across Twitter, Facebook and in comments on news sites during this timeframe," says Gordon Geldenhuys, head of online reputation management at 25AM. Interest in the trial peaked on 3 March, when Pistorius pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, says 25AM.
Global interest
25AM says the US is generating the most social chatter about the Oscar Pistorius trial, followed by SA, the UK, Greece, Germany, Canada and the Netherlands. The most commonly used hashtags on Twitter - the channel that is dominating social posts about the trial - are #oscartrial, #oscarpistorius, #pistorius, #news, and #sabcnews.
"The Oscar Pistorius trial illustrates how hungry the public has become for real-time news and information, as well as how information spreads virally," says Geldenhuys. "It's interesting to see how mainstream media dominates the conversation about this trial, largely because journalists have access to the courtroom where the case is unfolding."
25AM adds the most commonly mentioned Twitter usernames in order were: @encanews, @oscartrial199, @oscarpistorius (the accused's official Twitter account), @paddypower, @ann7tv, @marykevermaak, @guardian, @barrybateman, @debra_patta, and @bbcandrewh.
Most of these user names belong to journalists covering the trial, with some like Barry Bateman (174 000 followers) "amassing a huge amount of local and international followers with their coverage", it says.
However, there is one anomaly, which is Paddy Power (@paddypower), a sports betting company in the UK, offering punters odds on whether Pistorius will be found guilty, says 25AM. "Controversially, it offered money back to anyone who bet on the outcome of the trial in a TV advert that became one of the most complained about ever in the UK."
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