5 Social Media News Stories You Need to Read This Week
By Yasmin PierreNov 20
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Published May 17th 2023
Twitter and the platform’s goings-on have become hugely influential in the world. World leaders, celebrities, and your average joes rub shoulders, share videos, and shout at each other over anything and everything.
Among the billions of tweets, what manages to grab people’s attention the most?Below is a list of the 20 most retweeted tweets which tells us what tweeters love to share – the list even highlights some huge historical moments.
At number 20, we have the most recent tweet on the list. “My brother!! Come back safely!! 💜 Love View” is a farewell to BTS’ Jin, whose real name is Kim Seokjin, the first member of BTS to begin 18 months of military duty required by South Korea.
This account has quite a few appearances on our list. K-pop megastars BTS command a huge army of fans on Twitter. Nearly anything they post will get hundreds of thousands of retweets.
In a tweet simply tagging Harry Styles between two heart emojis, BST shared a short video of themselves singing along to Falling at a Harry Styles concert.
Kim Taehyung, who goes by V, was seen taking a selfie while getting styled by a crew member.
BTS Jungkook’s a cappella singing of Savage Love lands the 17th spot on our list. “Your voice is a real blessing,” fans were tweeting.
On Jungkook’s birthday, BTS tweeted a video of another band member seemingly trying to wake him up.
BTS grabbed the Best Fan ARMY award at the 2020 iHeartRadio Music Awards and dedicated it to their fans, also known as ARMY.
The Japanese YouTuber Hikakin hosted a Nintendo Switch giveaway, promising to award 40 lucky people with Nintendo Switch organic EL.
The Spanish-Norwegian YouTuber Elrubius, whose channel primarily consists of gameplays and vlogs, ran a giveaway. It was simple enough. Retweet his tweet and get a chance to win some prizes, such as games consoles, televisions, and telescopes. Clearly a winning tactic. Stay tuned for more of Elrubius, too.
This 2013 tweet from BTS is still accumulating likes, comments, and shares on Twitter, even now, 10 years later! According to Koreaboo, the band has tweeted this phrase 7 times in 7 years, and each tweet represents a milestone in the band’s history.
It’s just Jungkook dancing to Billie Eilish’s hit “Bad Guy”. Twitter loved it.
After the appearance of neo-Nazis and fascists in Charlottesville, Va., and the ensuing violence, Barack Obama put out a tweet many saw as a response.The tweet is a picture of Obama with some kids, and a quote from Mandela’s book Long Walk to Freedom.
Another YouTube giveaway from Elrubius.This was the first version of his LIMONADA giveaway. You already know the drill: Retweet his tweet and get a chance to win some prizes, such as games consoles, televisions, and telescopes. Maybe all Twitter accounts should be doing this. 🤔
A simple tweet, but with a specific meaning any BTS fan will know.V, a BTS member, says that purple is all about trusting and loving someone for a long time, and this usage has now been adopted by the BTS fandom.
The Japanese YouTuber and co-founder of the Japanese multi-channel network UUUM, Hikakin hosted his second giveaway, promising to award 103 people with an iPhone.
Chadwick Boseman's posthumous tweet announcing the actor's death landed on the #6 spot of the most retweeted tweets list. It also made history as the most liked tweet in the history of Twitter, with 6.9m likes at the time of writing this article.
One of the most wholesome tweets on this list, it’s Louis Tomlinson sending a message of love to his One Direction bandmate Harry Styles.And that’s it. The band’s huge Twitter following got involved and propelled it to Twitter stardom.
Taken at the Oscars in 2014, this tweet from Ellen DeGeneres includes a bunch of well-known faces, such as Bradley Cooper, Lupita Nyong’o, Brad Pitt, and, now controversially, Kevin Spacey.
It’s clear proof that more celebs = more retweets.
What started as, we presume, an off-hand joke from Wendy’s social media manager, quickly turned into a massive viral moment. Carter Wilkerson needed his nuggs.
After asking how many RTs it would take to get a year of free chicken nuggets, the restaurant chain put the price at 18m. Carter got to work.
Before long the Twitterverse picked up the tweet and it got support from millions of accounts as #NuggsForCarter went global. Unfortunately, Carter fell far short of the 18m Wendy’s requested.
In the end though, it didn’t matter. For his hard work, and unexpected success, Wendy’s still gave him his years supply of nuggets, plus they donated $100k to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.
At number two we have the most recent tweet on the list. It’s from Yusaku Maezawa, a massively successful Japanese businessman.
It’s another giveaway, with 1bn yen being promises to 1,000 people. A huge amount that explains this tweet’s placement. Money is obviously a motivator.
Here we are. The most retweeted tweet of all time is Yusaku Maezawa, a Japanese billionaire, promising money to 100 people.
In other words, it’s another money giveaway. For this one, it was to commemorate Maezawa’s company, ZOZO, raking in 10bn yen over the 2018/19 Christmas and New Year period. He promised to split 100m yen between 100 randomly chosen people.
A generous end to our list and an insightful lesson to all social media managers: people love free money.
Note: This article is based on the Wikipedia list, and it only includes tweets that are still live.Additionally, retweets represent the most current number of retweets at the time of writing this article. That number is subject to change if the original tweet was deleted by its author or otherwise removed from the service.
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