If you weren’t feeling old enough already, you’ll be glad to know that today is Twitter’s tenth birthday.
In those ten years the social network has had an incredible impact on the way we live – from how we find out about what’s going on in the world, to communicating with friends, to providing a platform for mighty keyboard warriors the world over.
More importantly, it has also captured the events and feelings around some of the world’s biggest moments – such as the #JeSuisParis hashtag used to mark the tragedies of the Paris attacks.
So to mark the occasion of its birthday, Twitter has revealed the biggest trends from its first ten years.
From the most used hashtag to the most popular tweet ever, these are the moments that shook the Twittersphere.
The Most Retweeted Tweet Ever
And the winner is – Ellen DeGeneres’s famous Oscar selfie taken at the 2014 awards show and posted on The Ellen Show’s account is still the most retweeted tweet ever. Having stacked up over three million retweets, it will be hard to beat.
The Most Followed Person
With a mightily impressive 84.7 million followers, it’s Katy Perry who takes the gong for this one. Her account offers her followers behind the scenes glimpses at her life as well as occasional words of wisdom.
You may be sad to hear that Justin Bieber only has a mere 77 million, Taylor Swift, 73 million and Kim Kardashian a pathetic 44 million – you need to up your game guys.
The Most Mentioned Person
Yes, it’s Justin Bieber (sigh). For all those non-beliebers out there sick of the mention of his name it seems you’re firmly in the minority.
People on Twitter seem to love talking about what the pop star’s getting up to – from his new album, to the return of his reckless ways and, of course, his penis.
Most Tweeted Emoji
It was last year’s word of the year – not to mention the most common emoji reaction on Twitter to TV programmes.
So what could it be other than everyone’s favourite expression of hilarity – the crying-laughing emoji. It’s just nice to know that there’s so much laughter in the world.
Most Geo-Tagged City
There must be something in the air in Brazil, as residents of – and visitors to – São Paulo are willing to share their location loudly and proudly, with 638 million tags in the last decade.
No one really knows why – it has over 11 million residents making it the 11th most populated city in the world, it’s the home of the Carnival of São Paulo and it hosted matches during the 2014 World Cup – which could all help to explain why people wanted everyone to know they were there.
The Most Tweeted Hashtag Tradition
Social networks like Twitter and Instagram are filled with hashtag traditions and games. We all love a bit of #ThrowbackThursday or #FridayFeeling.
But, let’s be honest, what people really want out of Twitter is followers. And #FF shows just that – Follow Friday is the most popular tradition with over 539 million mentions.
The Total Number Of Likes
Or – if the traditionalists want to keep it old school – favourites, as they were for nine years.
But it was only when Twitter changed them to likes last year that people lost their shit over them. However, people have been keen to spread the love, handing out over 250 billion likes/favourites over the last decade.
The Tweets Per Minute Event Record
Twitter has turned things like the Super Bowl and even TV shows like the X Factor into massive, global events.
But the one that really got peoples’ fingers flying in the last decade was the 2014 World Cup final in Brazil. When Germany overcame Argentina in the dying minutes of the game to win 1-0, there were 618,725 tweets per minute.
That’s nearly 56 million tweets during the match. Damn that’s some fast tweeting.
Fastest Person To Reach One Million Followers
It’s been a pretty mad couple of years for Caitlyn Jenner. Last year she officially waved goodbye to her former identity as Bruce when a judge formally recognised her gender change and new name.
And on Twitter her popularity has boomed, making her the fastest in the whole of Twitter’s ten year history to get to one million followers.
And if you’re wondering how long it took – four hours and three minutes. Honestly.
The Most Shared Word
In a heartwarming end to our journey through Twitter’s first decade we can confirm that the most shared word to date has been ‘love’. The humble word has been mentioned a whopping 34.8 billion times. Isn’t that sweet.
So it’s nice to know that maybe Twitter is being used for the right reasons, let’s hope the next ten years bring us as much fun as the last.
