From Twitter to X: 20 years of memes, moves and hot shots

ByTech Word News

It has often been compared to a global square.

While the analogy may have been exaggerated, Twitter has evolved into something that roughly fits this description since its public debut two decades ago on July 15, 2006.

At the height of its influence, the platform – renamed X in 2023 – gave the powerful and the unsung a space to pretend and pontificate, 140 characters (later 280 characters) at a time.

Its memes and viral videos have been distracting and entertaining, but Twitter has also become the preferred way for governors and heads of state — and one U.S. president in particular — to communicate with the public. Protesters, as in Iran after the disputed 2009 election, have used this to spread their message to the wider world. And women shared candid accounts of sexual harassment and assault, fueling the #MeToo movement.

Here are a few highlights (and a few misses) of the past 20 years:

July 2006

On July 15, 2006, with the public debut of Twitter, a new era of provocative hotshots, snappy reactions, and random thoughts was unleashed on social media.

That milestone was preceded by a soft launch about four months earlier, when Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s co-founder and first chief executive, resigned first tweet. At the time, the name of the platform was slightly different from the ubiquitous moniker.

“Just setting up my twttr,” Mr. Dorsey wrote on March 21, 2006.

2009

Earlier popular hashtags – a workaround for Twitter’s search function – included #uknogurblackwhen, created by user Ashley Weatherspoon. New York Times critic James Poniewozik called the brand “sort of an origin story for black Twitter”, which he described as “a general phenomenon of blackness and black culture manifesting itself online”.

There were reaction emojis (a GIF of Michael Jackson eating popcorn from the “Thriller” video as shorthand for amused anticipation) and plenty of jokes, often with an underlying purpose or statement (the #OscarsSoWhite tag was a protest against the lack of diversity in Hollywood this awards season.)

Finally, Black Twitter takes on the killings of Trayvon Martin and George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement; the election of President Trump; BBQ Becky and Permit Patty; and Elon Musk’s acquisition of the platform.

May 2009

Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space. Neil Armstrong was the first to walk on the moon. So what about Mike Massimino?

Not all space pioneering feats are created equal, but Mr. Massimino, the American astronaut who was part of the STS-125 space shuttle mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope in 2009, has his own historical footnote.

On May 13, 2009, he became the first person to tweet from space, emailing NASA that the space agency on his account.

“From Orbit: The launch was awesome!!,” he wrote. “Feeling great, working hard and enjoying the beautiful views, the adventure of a lifetime has begun!”

June 2009

A protest movement that became known as the Green Movement emerged in Tehran and other Iranian cities after the disputed presidential election. Demonstrators took to social media — mainly Twitter — to get their message across Iran’s borders, but short flurries of text and short video clips proved no match for the Iranian government, which violently suppressed the uprising.

C. 2012

As Twitter became increasingly defined by its subcultures, the term “Weird Twitter” emerged as a term to describe a stream of conscious random observations, non sequiturs, and nonsensical takes.

Some pandered for “likes” or to elicit a flurry of replies, the snarky the better.

On September 29, 2013, one of Weird Twitter’s main characters, @dril, posted a detailed list of expenses that included $200 for food, $150 for utilities, $800 for rent, and $3,600 for candles. “Someone who is good at economics please help me budget,” he wrote. “My family is dying.

The “Candles” tweet, as it became known, was retweeted about 57,000 times and received more than 900 replies. When one user suggested that @dril “spend less on candles,” the response was quick and to the point: “no.”

March 2014

It was the Oscars moment that had Twitter crawling, but it wasn’t the acceptance speech or the red carpet appearance.

During the 2014 Academy Awards, Ellen DeGeneres pulled out her Samsung phone to take an impromptu selfie with a group of Hollywood A-listers in the audience.

The shot included Bradley Cooper holding the phone, Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence, Lupita Nyong’o, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts and Kevin Spacey. During the show, the image was retweeted more than two million times, record setting at that time.

Updated

October 2017

In the days after The Times published an investigative report detailing decades of sexual harassment allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, women took to Twitter to say they too had been victims of such misconduct. The movement these posts sparked took its name from the hashtag attached to it: #MeToo.

Actress Alyssa Milano is credited with inspiring the online campaign with a post on October 15, 2017 (although Tarana Burke created the Me Too mantra a decade earlier to seek healing for black women who have suffered sexual abuse). “If you have been sexually harassed or assaulted, please reply ‘me too’ to this tweet,” Ms Milano wrote.

2020

In the evolution of the obituary, Twitter has cemented its role, both as a space for news of significant deaths and for the cascade of tributes large and small that follow.

In August 2020, when “Black Panther” star Chadwick Boseman died of colon cancer at the age of 43, his Twitter account and other social media pages broke the news to his fans.

Mr. Boseman’s family announced that he was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer four years ago. They shared that as the disease progressed, he underwent surgeries and chemotherapy and continued to appear in many of his most famous films.

“A true fighter, Chadwick endured it all and brought you the many films you’ve grown to love,” his family wrote.

The post received more than 6.5 million likes and was retweeted more than 2.5 million times.

January 2021

Late night shots, letters in ALL CAPS and schoolyard taunts.

No other US president has used the communication style of Donald J. Trump, who amassed more than 88 million Twitter followers during his first term in the White House.

But Mr Trump’s spreading of lies and impulsive behavior during the coronavirus pandemic and after his 2020 election loss have put him at odds with some social media companies, particularly Twitter.

As Covid-19 marched around the world in 2020, Mr Trump retweeted a video that falsely suggested the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine was an effective treatment for the virus, a post Twitter later took down.

The president’s Twitter post reached on Jan. 8, 2021, two days after a mob of Mr. Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an effort to prevent Congress from confirming the election of Joseph R. Biden Jr. the president.

Twitter said it was permanently banning Mr. Trump from its services, citing two of Trump’s posts that it said violated its rules against glorifying violence. In one post, Mr Trump called his supporters “patriots”, while in another he said he would not attend Mr Biden’s inauguration.

November 2022

Mr. Trump sought to compensate for his banishment from Twitter and other social networks by starting his own comment platform in February 2022: Truth Social.

A few months later, the seeds were sown for Mr. Trump’s eventual return to Twitter when Mr. Musk, the world’s richest man and a staunch Trump ally, struck a deal to buy Twitter for about $44 billion.

“I hope even my worst critics stay on Twitter because that’s what freedom of speech is all about,” Musk said he tweeted at that time.

In November 2022, Mr. Musk announced that he was restoring Mr. Trump’s account after conducting a Twitter survey.

December 2022

With a single click of the powder blue tweet button (the post button is now black), the famous and the anonymous alike could name-call, insult or wage public disputes at a staccato pace.

Enter Andrew Tate and Greta Thunberg.

In December 2022, Mr Tate, an online influencer currently facing charges of human trafficking in two European countries, took to Twitter to take a dig at Ms Thunberg’s environmental activism.

“Hi @GretaThunberg,” he said he wrote. “I have 33 cars. My Bugatti has a w16 8.0l quad turbo.”

Mr Tate, who along with his brother Tristan Tate is known for misogynistic views and bragging about his wealth, added that he would send Ms Thunberg a list of his vehicles’ emissions.

Ms. Thunberg delivered a hot one return.

“Yes, please enlighten me,” she replied, providing a fictitious email address that sought to diminish his masculinity.

May 2023

As many prolific posters have been on Twitter, or X, for Mr. Musk, one Republican with presidential aspirations and proposals to replace Mr. Trump as the party’s standard-bearer was optimistic about her potential to connect with voters: Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.

On May 24, 2023, Mr. DeSantis decided to announce his presidential candidacy via audio live on X.

The production was marred by technical glitches, heated mic moments and muffled and half-spoken conversations before the live stream was abruptly cut short.

Rivals, including Mr. Trump, pounced on the unfortunates.

“Launch of DeSanctus TWITTER is a DISASTER!” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social and used one of his derisive nicknames for Mr. DeSantis.

2022-23

After Mr. Musk took control of Twitter, which he renamed X in 2023, and scrapped the brand’s blue bird logo, a stream of left-leaning celebrities stopped using the service. The defectors included Mark Hamill, Whoopi Goldberg, Shonda Rhimes and Barbra Streisand.

A number of them went to Bluesky, an experimental social media app that launched in 2019 under Mr. Dorsey, the former chief executive of Twitter.