In 2018, Twitter is a near constant roar of news, memes, commentary and celebrity feuding. Most of us won’t go a day without checking our feed, which has replaced traditional media, not just as a news source, but a space for us to digest the constant political and pop culture tumult that is our modern world. And this year, we ‘took to Twitter’ to discuss just about everything.
The platform’s recently published 2018 year in review shows that most of that ‘everything’ can be broken down as a passion for politics and social change, but also a fervent stanning of K-Pop. In fact Korean megagroup BTS were one of Twitter’s most discussed celebrities/musicians with “more mentions than we could count”, and they also snatched the crown for most liked tweet of the year when they participated in Drake’s In My Feelings challenge.
Other widely discussed celebrities included Kanye West (obviously) and Ariana Grande (even more obviously). The closing ceremony of this year’s Winter Olympics generated the most tweets in a day on 25 February, while Black Panther, Crazy Rich Asians and Love, Simon topped the platform’s most discussed movies of 2018, with SNL the most tweeted about TV show.
But in a year of such incredibly political turmoil, both in the US with Trump’s presidency and increasing anti-immigration propaganda, and closer to home with Britain’s seemingly endless shambolic Brexit discussions, it’s understandable that a lot of us were tweeting about our political opinions. A lot. Since playing a pivotal role in the Arab Spring revolution Twitter has increasingly been the platform for social change and awareness, and 2018 was no exception, with the #MeToo movement, March For Our Lives, NFL player protests and Black Lives Matter continuing to be hotly tweeted and debated about subjects.
Elsewhere, Ariana Grande’s touching message to fans after the Manchester terror attack, Harry Maguire’s World Cup meme and David Schwimmer being forced to deny stealing from an off-license in Blackpool all made the UK’s fave Twitter moments of 2018.
What a bloody year, eh.