Tweet by News Anchor Provides Levity Amid Tragedy

A British television news anchor has put herself in the middle of a Twitter storm while reporting from Paris on the developments following Friday's devastating attacks on the French capital. While tweeting from the streets of the city, Kay Burley of Sky News posted a photo of a forlorn-looking golden retriever with the text "sadness in his eyes" and the hashtag #parisattacks.

By lunchtime in the U.K., Burley's show of sympathy for France's plight quickly caught the eye of Twitter users who retweeted the image over 2,000 times, propelling her name and the phrase #sadnessnhiseyes to Twitter's top trends in the U.K.

Many took it upon themselves to mimic Burley's tweet with their own photos of people, animals and objects appearing to frown, while others accused her of having "misjudged the mood." Twitter was not unanimous though as users also defended her, writing that the post had cheered them up and they did not "see what the big deal is."

Some took a very direct approach to matching Burley's tweet, photographing their own dogs looking down:

Others pointed out that canines are not the only ones capable of empathy:

Even Sunday breakfast had seen better days:

And the sombre mood had also affected bathtub faucets:

Not to mention lion-like, wooden fences:

Burley eventually responded to the trend she had created, alluding to a quote by Oscar Wilde. "Only one thing worse than being talked about... ," Burley tweeted, without adding the usual punchline which is "not being talked about".