Twitter 2012 highlights include Obama, Bieber and #London2012
Posted December 18, 2012 10:28 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
From Pope Benedict XVI to Psy, the summer Olympics to the U.S. election, the Twitter highlights for 2012 ranged from politics to entertainment, sports and religion.
The biggest newsmakers online this year were strikingly similar to news events around the world – with just a little more Justin Bieber.
President Barack Obama’s election night tweet – in which he wrote “Four more years” underneath a picture of himself and Michelle Obama – was retweeted over 810,000 times and selected by more than 300,000 users as a “favourite.”
It was the most popular tweet of the year on the social networking website.
A heartfelt message from Canadian popstar Bieber to a young fan who died was the second-most retweeted message on the site in 2012.
“RIP Avalanna. i love you,” Bieber wrote. The message was retweeted over 220,000 times and favourited more than 100,000 times.
The most-talked about event of the year was the Summer Olympics. The 16-day London Games generated 150 million tweets – but it wasn’t just about sports.
“The closing ceremonies (specifically, the Spice Girls’ performance) amassed the largest Games-related spike, 116,000+ Tweets per minute,” according to the official Twitter blog.
The first debate of the U.S. election spawned 10 million tweets. The MTV Video Music Awards, the Super Bowl and Euro 2012 also generated big buzz online.
Twitter also welcomed dozens of high-profile new users in 2012, including the Pope. He already has over a billion followers in the real world and he quickly amassed over a million under the @pontifex twitter handle.
Gangnam Style singer Psy, Neil Young and Chelsea Clinton all joined Twitter in 2012.
Check out other highlights in the video below.
Meanwhile, Psy and Bieber also made it to YouTube’s list of the most-popular videos. The top 10 trending videos in Canada for 2012 are:
9. Call Me Maybe MattyBRaps & Cimrelli “Don’t call me baby” paro
8. Facebook Parenting: For the troubled teen
7. “Fallen Kingdom” a Minecraft Parody of Coldplay’s Viva la Vida (Music Video)
6. Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates Epic Rap Battles of History Season 2
5. Surprise Britney Learns ‘Gangnam Style’ from Psy
4. Call Me Maybe featuring Justin Bieber, Selena, Ashley Tisdale, etc.
3. KONY 2012
2. Somebody that I used to know – Walk off the Earth Gotye cover (The Burlington-based band gained a slew of online attention for their video)
1. PSY – Gangnam Style (the video is rapidly approaching a billion views)
