St. Patrick’s Day 2026: Pendulum Insights Reveal a High-Engagement, Creator-Led Global Celebration

St. Patrick’s Day has been dominating social media since March 10th - driving a significant surge in engagement.

High-level analysis shows that while news organizations lead in mention volume, the depth of the social engagement narrative is being forged in video-first environments like TikTok and YouTube. 

By leveraging automated speech recognition (ASR) and computer vision, Pendulum's social listening and intelligence has surfaced a narrative that is increasingly visual, with nearly 13% of mentions originating from text detected inside images and unscripted video dialogue.

Platform Reach Metrics

Pendulum’s processing power highlights the shift from text to multimedia consumption:

• Total Volume (Video/Audio): 1,028.8 hours of video content analyzed.
• Total Volume (Images): 5,697 estimated images processed.
• Discovery Sources: Mentions were predominantly found in Descriptions (43.1K), but critical intelligence was extracted from Captions (9.4K), OCR/On-Screen Text (4.8K), and ASR Transcripts (5.1K).

Engagement Leaders

Top 5 Creators (by Impressions)

News organizations drove the bulk of the raw volume, but the true cultural momentum came from individual creators and niche channels. These voices served as the primary bridge to Gen Z and Millennial audiences, turning mentions into movements.

• Telemundo Chicago (@telemundochicago44): Taking the top spot with a staggering 7.1M impressions, this channel dominated the visual narrative. By focusing on high-impact footage—specifically the iconic dyeing of the Chicago River—they captured the global imagination through TikTok's recommendation engine.
• The Besties: With 5.3M impressions, this YouTube-based entity serves as a prime example of an organic advocate. Their high-reach content suggests a deep connection with their audience, moving beyond simple reporting to drive cultural conversation and commentary.
• k9konvoy: This TikTok creator represents the high-frequency strategy. With 33 specific mentions and 869.4K impressions, they maintained a consistent presence throughout the week, proving that volume combined with short-form video is a recipe for sustained visibility.
• jonnysipsofficial: Generating 745.1K impressions, this creator focused on the lifestyle and entertainment segment of the holiday. Their performance highlights the audience's appetite for vibe-based content over traditional hard news.
• irishdaily: Rounding out the top five with 507K impressions, this account is a key cultural anchor. As an authentic advocate for Irish tradition, they provided the educational and heritage-focused context that gave the week’s festivities a sense of legitimacy and depth.

Anomalies & Interesting Data

• The Silent Narrative: Over 14,000 mentions were only discovered because Pendulum watched the video (OCR) or listened to the audio (ASR). Without multimedia analysis, 19% of the total dataset would have been missed.
• Bitchute Sentiment Shift: While the overall mood is 50%+ Positive, Bitchute shows a statistical anomaly with 26% Negative Sentiment. This indicates that counter-culture or fringe narratives regarding the holiday/news are clustering on alternative platforms.
• News vs. Engagement Gap: The News category has the highest volume of mentions (48.1K) but 0 reported engagement, whereas TikTok has fewer mentions (6.7K) but 5.2M engagements. This confirms that the audience is not where the volume is.

Our data proves that unscripted, visual-first content (ASR/OCR-heavy) is the primary driver of actual consumer engagement. Authenticity, as seen through organic advocates like IrishDaily, is currently outperforming institutional reporting by a factor of 10 in engagement per post.

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