Science & Tech

Olympics, Obama, And Bieber: What Topped Twitter In 2012

Published on: December 12, 2012 at 2:01 AM
By Chris Greenhough

The most popular Twitter subjects of 2012 have been revealed by the social networking giant, with President Barack Obama and pint-sized popster Justin Bieber taking the top two spots.

However, neither the re-elected president or the Biebs could completely topple the London 2012 Olympics, which beat out the US election as the most tweeted-about event of the year.

As previously reported , an election victory tweet from Obama rapidly became the most retweeted of all time with 810,000 retweets. The tweet, which featured a picture of Obama hugging wife Michelle, carried a simple yet effective message: “Four more years”. Twitter spokeswoman Rachael Horwitz said:

“Within hours, that tweet simultaneously became the most retweeted of 2012, and the most retweeted ever. In fact, retweets of that simple message came from people in more than 200 countries around the world.”

Meanwhile, Twitter denizens remained busy during the final vote count for the presidential elections, reaching 327,452 tweets per minute on election night. There was a whopping tally of 31 million election-themed tweets on Election Day itself.

But that paled into comparison compared to the 2012 Olympic Games in London, which brought in 150 million tweets over its 16 days. It wasn’t a piece of sporting drama that hogged the limelight however: While Usain Bolt’s victory in the 200 meters topped 80,000 tweets per minute, the performance of the Spice Girls during the closing ceremony pulled in 115,000 tweets per minute.

Second in the retweet stakes was Bieber, who saw a tweet about a six-year-old fan who died from a rare form of brain cancer retweeted more than 220,000 times. Green Bay Packers NFL player TJ Lang (above) picked up bronze with his sweary tweet about a controversial call by a substitute referee earning 98,000 retweets.

Syria’s deadly civil war meant it was the most talked about country in 2012, while Superstorm Sandy, the EURO 2012 soccer tournament , and Whitney Houston’s death also dominating discussion.

The most retweeted tweets of 2012 are below:

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