The Story Of 2015 According To Twitter’s Top Trends – 7 Things We Learned

Twitter has released its annual end-of-year lists for 2015, and each of them gives a slightly different insight to what the year’s been like. The place to start is its Top Trends section, which shows the top 10 things people discussed within various categories this year – from music to politics. Then there’s its New Voices section – showing the biggest names who signed up to the microblogging service this year. Finally there’s its Most Retweeted section, which proves that One Direction members are among the most followed names on the platform. Here’s what we’ve learned from how Twitter breaks it down.

1. CAITLYN JENNER REACHED ONE MILLION FOLLOWERS FASTER THAN OBAMA
Obama made quite the entrance back in May with the below tweet. He managed to get a million followers in five hours – a record – but Caitlyn Jenner’s entrance in June managed the same feat within just four. Obama now has 5.46 million followers to Jenner’s 3.4 million, though.

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2. 16 OF BROOKLYN BECKHAM’S 32 TWEETS SO FAR ARE PHOTOS OF HIMSELF OR HIS SHOES #SHOES
Beckham is one of 25 ‘New Voices’ Twitter has publicised – these guys are all essential new follows, apparently – and scrolling down his feed reveals shi partiality to selfies and ‘Hot Dogs Or Legs’-style shots exhibiting his #shoes. Others include ex-footballer and pundit Alan Shearer, Diana Ross, POTUS, and Caitlyn Jenner. Not forgetting, of course, Gossip Girl’s Chace Crawford, who’s tweeted publicly exactly four times since joining in May. One of those was an advert for Absolut Vodka, so don’t worry if you don’t feel like following all of them.

3. ONE DIRECTION MEMBERS’ BORING TWEETS WERE THE MOST RETWEETED THIS YEAR:
2010’s X Factor third-placers One Direction are responsible for five of the ten most retweeted tweets of the year via their own accounts – and four of those are reprehensibly nothing-y. Here they are, stamped and dated. First up – Harry Styles’ reaction to Zayn Malik leaving the band in March:

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Then there’s this eloquent July reaction to 1D’s five years of ‘journey’


In August ex-1D man Zayn was boringly positive about the band’s first single after his departure:


Niall Horan wished Liam a happy birthday in August. This one is at least a bit silly:


This one doesn’t really need a date or circumszzzzzz

4. BUT TWITTER KNOWS A GOOD TWEET WHEN IT SEES ONE:
Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy posted a final tweet before he died in February – one that was heartfelt and wise, and the ninth most retweeted this year.


Kanye’s Twitter version of Shia Labeouf’s ‘JUST DO IT’ speech, meanwhile, was the seventh most retweeted of 2015.

https://twitter.com/kanyewest/status/646504665929027584

5. EMOJIS TRENDED. EMOJIS.
This is them:

6. SO DID ONE DIRECTION, OBVIOUSLY
The most tweeted about musical act in 2015 was One Direction. X Factor USA group Fifth Harmony also made the list, coming an apt fifth, but otherwise it was dominated by award ceremonies – the scandalous MTV VMAs and EMAs, for example – and a load of K-Pop acts including Big Bang and GOT7.


Donut-licker Ariana Grande wasn’t filed under the music list – instead she topped the slightly nebulous ‘stars’ hashtag chart, which also contained Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez. How progressive, Twitter!

7. HASHTAGS CAN TELL STORIES
Twitter chose its favourite hashtags of the year to show how the world changed in 2015. Here’s how it’s represented its own sociological significance this year, in two minutes:

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