Twitter users shared 125 million hashtags last year — every day. Alongside those millions of hashtags and around 500 million GIFs, Twitter recently shared the biggest tweets of 2018. Among the unsurprising celebrities, politics, and of course, the Olympics, South Korean pop group BTS topped the list for both the most-liked tweet and the most tweeted account.
The most liked tweet of 2018 was a BTS tweet of the also popular #InMyFeelingsChallenge, which copies the dance from a song by rapper Drake (who was 2018’s fourth most-tweeted celebrity). The video generated almost 1.7 million likes. BTS was also the most-tweeted global celebrity in 2017’s Twitter data.
Former President Barack Obama’s tweet after the Parkland, Florida shooting was a close second with 1.6 million likes. The March For Our Lives was the most-tweeted movement (followed by the NFL protests, Students Stand Up, Me Too, and Black Lives Matter). The third most-liked tweet was a video about a dog that insisted on getting the same ear medicine as his brother, a video that impressively generated 1.4 million likes for a Twitter user with less than 3,000 followers.
An Obama GIF was the most quoted tweet on the platform in 2018, and the former president was the second most-tweeted political figure after President Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton, Brett Kavanaugh, and Sarah Huckabee-Sanders were also among the most tweeted political figures.
The re-tweeting honors went to YouTuber El Rubius, where a re-tweet of the “Limonada 2.0” entered followers into a giveaway. (It didn’t top the most-tweeted tweet ever last year, which was a teenager’s request for free chicken nuggets.)
Out of those 125 million daily hashtags, #nowplaying was the most used in 2018, followed by #newprofilepic, and #bbb18 for Big Brother Brazil.
The BTS love also earned the pop group the spot as the most-tweeted celebrity in the U.S., followed by LeBron James, Kanye West, Drake, EXO (a band that hails for from South Korea and China), Ariana Grande, Cardi B, Beyonce, Jimin Park (a South Korean singer), and Nicki Minaj.
Black Panther topped the list of most-tweeted movies, followed by The Avengers: Infinity War, The Incredibles 2, Star Wars: The Lost Jedi, and Deadpool 2. On TV, the top tweets went to Saturday Night Live, followed by Roseanne, Gray’s Anatomy, The Waking Dead, and Big Brother. 13 Reasons Why topped the list for streaming shows, along with Stranger Things, Black Mirror, Queer Eye, and The Handmaid’s Tale.
The day of the year that saw the most tweets in 2018 was February 25, the date of the closing ceremonies for the Olympics. The Olympics were themselves also the second-most tweeted athletic event, after the FIFA World Cup Russia. The most tweeted athletes included LeBron James, Colin Kaepernick, Kobe Bryant, Kyrie Irving, and Tom Brady. Unsurprisingly, the Super Bowl was the most-tweeted single sporting even in the U.S.
Video game fans on Twitter chatted the most about Fortnite, another unsurprising statistic, followed by Call of Duty, Overwatch, Pokemon, and EA Sports Madden NFL.
Along with sharing the top Tweets, Twitter is asking users to tweet their biggest moments of 2018 using the hashtag #ThisHappened.
