Chattersome Labs: Here’s what people talked about in 2017

Summarizing the year, by the words that came and went on Twitter.

This is a little bit about Twitter, but it’s more about the propagation of whatever percolated through the culture in 2017. Wherever something newsworthy starts out, Twitter picks up on it. If something happens on any social channel or just on the regular news, people come back to their Twitter account to talk it out.

Words and phrases used on Twitter are a proxy for, in a word, everything. Events happen, and end up on Twitter. Examining the resulting word trends is like holding a mirror up to ourselves.

The charts below are from millions of US tweets from 1/1/2017 to 1/1/2018. We looked at words and phrases up to four words long, building a year-long timeline for each.

Simply choosing words that didn’t occur every day eliminated most uninteresting words. We include only those occurring less than half the year.

There are 216 words and phrases that we’re calling the top words of the year. We saw each of these at least 20,000 times, and since our Twitter feed sees a roughly 1% sample of US tweets, these words were likely used at least 1 million times or more among all US tweets.

These are the telling words that people used a lot, but only part of the time -- once a week, once a month, or just once for the year.

An interesting view on each is its usage chart through the year. Sorting words by when they peaked allows a browse and reflection on events in time order.

People talked a lot in 2017, and it was about politics, television, football, holidays, memes, and the weather. Among other things.

#happynewyear, happy new year, valentine's day, #valentinesday, mardi gras, #internationalwomensday, #stpatricksday, st patrick's day, #nationalpuppyday, april fools, 4/20, cinco de mayo, mother's day, #mothersday, memorial day, father's day, fathers day, #4thofjuly, 4th of july, independence day, labor day, friday the 13th, happy halloween, #halloween, pumpkins, #thanksgiving, happy thanksgiving, new years eve, #2018

christmas music, christmas tree, christmas party, christmas shopping, christmas eve, the holidays, want for christmas, #christmas, #merrychristmas, holiday season, merry christmas, happy holidays

prom dress, senior night, for spring break, first day of school, hoco, finals week

#sundayfunday, #mondaymotivation, #tuesdaythoughts, #mcm, #wednesdaywisdom, #throwbackthursday, #tgif, #saturdaymorning#humpday, #tbt, #fridayfeeling, #wcw, #thursdaythoughts, #flashbackfriday, #fbf

cash me, #missuniverse, #sxsw, #btsbbmas, fidget spinner, chyna, open for a surprise, iphone x, tom petty, weinstein, #metoo, 280 characters, gucci gang, dilly, black friday, the last jedi, #thelastjedi, @edkrassen

#thebachelor, the bachelor, #goldenglobes, #neweditionbet, #scandal, #snl, #grammys, @midnight, #htgawm, #oscars, oscars, #lhhatl, #empire, 13 reasons why, #rhoa, #bbmas, #thebachelorette, #betawards, #teenchoice, #got, #livepd, @amazonchannels, #gotmvp, #ahscult, #insecurehbo, #bb19, #thisisus, #twd

#inauguration, the inauguration, #womensmarch, women's march, #alternativefacts, #muslimban, #nobannowall, travel ban, gorsuch, nunes, #trumpcare, @realdonaldtrump @abc, @oreillyfactor, trumpcare, #ahca, covfefe, #covfefe, @kathygriffin, sean spicer, @scaramucci, @lisamurkowski, white supremacists, statues, daca, #daca, #takeaknee, kneel, kneeling, gun control, manafort, franken, @mooresenate, roy moore, public safety, #netneutrality, net neutrality, tax bill

#olsenwpmoychallenge, #nationalchampionship, #seahawks, #cowboysnation, #gopackgo, #dallascowboys, aaron rodgers, field goal, @packers, #packers, #herewego, the steelers, the packers, fumble, superbowl, #sb51, #superbowl, the pats, #nfldraft, #httr, punt, #flyeaglesfly, heisman, a td

#nbavote, #royalrumble, #marchmadness, march madness, #wrestlemania, #bucciovertimechallenge, preds, #defendtheland, #nbafinals, #letsgopens, #stanleycup, game 5, floyd mayweather, conor mcgregor, @thenotoriousmma, canelo, #usmnt, #flythew, #thisteam, #hr4hr, #worldseries, #earnhistory

#winter, #snow, in the snow, full moon, snow day, solar eclipse, the eclipse, #solareclipse2017, #eclipse, #eclipse2017, #hurricaneharvey, hurricane harvey, a hurricane, #harvey, #houstonstrong, hurricane irma, #hurricaneirma, irma, #irma, the hurricane, #fall, its cold

Thursday, January 18, 2018

Here’s what people talked about in 2017

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