(#dwts) What is the story behind this trend in Social Media today?
17-09-2026
#DWTS is trending because Dancing with the Stars just launched Season 35 with a two-night premiere. Male celebrities danced on the first night and female celebrities on the second, with one couple eliminated each night before the regular weekly competition even began.The first night drew unusually high viewer engagement. The official online voting site crashed under the surge of votes, so producers discarded all web votes for that evening and counted only text votes. Hosts treated the outage as a sign of excitement, and the show still reported that total votes more than doubled compared with the previous season’s premiere. Ratings were strong as well, with the opener drawing nearly 6.7 million viewers and marking the series’ biggest premiere audience in six years.On that first night the lowest combination of judges’ scores and public votes sent home Conner Leavitt and new professional Adele Zaikman after a salsa. Leavitt is the husband of a recent contestant from the same reality-TV circle, which added extra attention to the early exit. The highest scores of the night went to Harry Shum Jr. and Jenna Johnson, followed closely by Paralympian Ezra Frech and Daniella Karagach.The second night belonged to the women. One of the couples was an all-female pairing, only the third same-sex partnership in the show’s long history. After the dances and another round of voting, Sarah Jane Nader and Hailey Bills were eliminated. That result, together with the earlier departure of another new professional, sparked a lot of conversation about the two-night format, the speed of the first cuts, and which performances deserved to stay.Standout moments, the voting glitch, the surprise early exits, the same-sex pairing, and the overall ratings bump all combined to keep the hashtag active as fans recapped scores, debated fairness, and looked ahead to the rest of the season.