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    BuzzFeed Presents A New Way To Understand "Romeo And Juliet"

    A real-time retelling of the classic Shakespearean tragedy where all the characters use social media and invite the audience to follow along.

    BuzzFeed's multi-platform adaptation consisted of seven character accounts on Instagram that interacted with each other and the audience that followed along. Each account used all of Instagram's features including feed, stories, and Instagram's newest feature, IGTV.

    The story has finished, but the accounts are public and you can go back and relive the play through social media.

    Our adaptation was a modern take on the play. For eight days, we posted as if the characters were real people and followed a true-to-life schedule around a teenager's school week and social life.

    – This was an LGBT love story. Our characters dealt with online bullying, friendship, homophobia, and finding love in a divided time.

    – Romeo, Mercutio, and Tybalt have been gender-swapped to make this a female-led story.

    – Fair Verona is transformed into Fair Verona High School.

    Characters have been omitted and others have been expanded.

    – For any character in the original play who dies, our adaptation just has them suddenly go dark on social media, meaning they've ceased communication with the rest of the world.

    Each character's Instagram was curated to be a reflection of their personality.

    Juliet:

    Rosaline runs Delights and Ends, a recap show and story roundup, gathering all the info in one place. If you only follow one account, follow this!!

    A fight breaks out between Tybalt and Mercutio in the halls of Fair Verona High. See it all unfold on Tybalt’s, Paris’s, and Romeo’s IG Story.

    Those involved end up in detention because Principal Prince does not tolerate violence at Fair Verona High.

    If you missed any of the details, watch Rosaline's Story Roundup on Delights and Ends!

    For more details and commentary, watch Episode 1 of the Delights and Ends Vlog on their IGTV!

    Romeo confides in Mercutio that she's been crushin' on Rosaline. Mercutio embarrasses Romeo on her Insta story.

    While Senator Capulet was away on business, Tybalt sent out invites to a very exclusive party.

    Watch the Delights and Ends Day 2 Story Roundups. And enjoy episode 2 of the Delights and Ends vlog below.

    Did you catch the secret hint from Paris? He's an expert at sneaking into parties.

    Mercutio persuades Romeo to go to Tybalt's party.

    Romeo and Mercutio snuck into the party by sharing the groundskeeper’s mixtape (Thanks for the tip, Delights and Ends!)

    Listen to that sweet tune here:

    Groundskreeper / Via soundcloud.com

    Mercutio and Romeo take a few Insta-worthy pics in the photo booth and Romeo forgets her mask! Tybalt recognizes Romeo without her mask and they get into a fight.

    Romeo ignores Tybalt and runs back to the photo booth for her mask where Juliet and Romeo meet!

    Romeo finds Juliet and asks her on a date. Juliet says “I’ll DM you” promising to keep in touch.

    Rosaline's Story Roundup is here to summarize the party and Paris drops some pretty exclusive info about Juliet's blog in this Delights and End episode!

    Everyone is back at school and our lovers are noticeably love struck.

    Tybalt threatens Romeo and Mercutio for showing up to the party. Juliet defends Romeo and regrets being born into the Capulet family of haters.

    Romeo's Insta story shows us that she was up all night thinking of Juliet. She can't concentrate and asks to go to Counselor Friar's office.

    Juliet seeks the school nurse's advice.

    Rosaline's Story Roundup provides a recap, but watch below for commentary in her Delights and Ends vlog with Paris.

    Romeo and Juliet went on dates during the weekend, but they seemed very secretive.

    Rosaline followed the young lovers through their weekend full of dates. Check out her Story Roundup to learn about Romeo and Juliet's secret code names for each other.

    Romeo posted this sweet drawing hinting at her relationship with Juliet.

    Tybalt commented some pretty nasty, homophobic things on Romeo's drawing. Mercutio defended her best friend, but Tybalt retaliated and went after Mercutio herself! Her comments were so hateful that the comments were actually taken down by Instagram!

    Luckily, Rosaline captured it on her story roundups.

    Mercutio went to her mom, Principal Prince, and after a long talk, her mom and she decided it would be for the best if she left social media for a while. See her goodbye on her story.

    Romeo was so furious and fed up with Tybalt's consistent bullying that she confronted Tybalt in front of the entire classroom. Paris and Juliet both caught the action on their stories.

    Tybalt permanently signed off from her account by posting a black image. Her photoset sounded a little threatening.

    Principal Prince immediately suspended Romeo from school. Juliet captured the loudspeaker announcement on her story and started a hashtag to help #FreeRomeo.

    Catch Rosaline's story roundup and watch the Delights and Ends vlog below.

    Tybalt used her access to her uncle's Instagram and posted a very controversial picture of Romeo and Juliet kissing on Senator Capulet's account!

    The caption on the photo was proof that Senator Capulet couldn't afford to have a lesbian daughter because it would hurt his image too much.

    Juliet posted a video on her feed apologizing and explained that she is not attracted to girls. She's smiling in the video, but you can tell it isn't genuine. Her father needed a public apology, so Juliet had to sacrifice her true self.

    Juliet documented a date with Paris too. Her family couldn't get any more bad press, after all. Thank goodness he was down for the photo op.

    Romeo saw Juliet's and Paris's posts and she just about lost it she was so outraged. She posted a long story that called out Juliet and Paris.

    Paris regretted going on the date with Juliet and questioned his whole motivation behind documenting all the drama for the past couple of days. Paris left social media for good.

    Romeo said goodbye as well.

    Juliet instantly regretted posting her fake video confession. She was lost and now that her crush was gone, she decided she should leave social media too.

    Rosaline summed it all up in her Story Roundup, but could barely get through her daily vlog episode. This time she was all alone and questioned why she kept Delights and Ends going anyway.

    View this post on Instagram

    Today’s episode will just be me ☹️

    A post shared by 🥀 Delights And Ends (@delightsandends) on

    And so our story ends, indeed a tragedy.

    Rosaline posted another vlog episode titled, "BREAKING NEWS!"

    Paris came back to record with Rosaline and he explained that he was just a beard for Juliet. They said a final goodbye and posted this picture on Delights and Ends.

    The caption read "tap ONCE to show us some love!" Well... tapping once shows any tagged accounts on a photo, so if you do that you get the handle, @bythehourofnine.

    This account leads to photos that show Romeo and Juliet together! So they did end up happy after all!

    Juliet had a picture on her feed that was a laptop opened to a Tumblr blog. If you followed the clues to find her favorite song's specific lyrics, you'd know her password was: blueframesonthewall.

    The (case-sensitive) URL behind Romeo and Juliet in this photo led to a BuzzFeed Quiz to find out which Romeo and Juliet character you are. If you completed all the possible variations you were presented the pieces to a new Instagram account handle.