Blog / Lent

This year, “School” topped the list of things Twitterers are giving up for Lent, up 44 places from last year. Remaining in the top ten from last year are Swearing, Alcohol, Soda, Social Networking, and Fast Food. Chocolate, Twitter, Sweets, and Lent round out the new additions to the top ten.

I don’t have a great explanation for why School is #1 this year–it could be that Ash Wednesday is later this year, so spring break is closer (for some it even starts today). It’s also possible that Twitter’s audience is skewing younger than it used to, or that younger Twitter users are more likely to tweet about Lent.

Timely topics this year are Boosie, referring to rapper Lil Boosie, who was released from prison this week (people joked that the prison was giving him up for Lent); and Electricity, referring to a widespread power outage in South Africa.

This list draws from 646,000 tweets during March 2 to 8 that mention giving up something for Lent and excludes retweets.

Rank	Word	Count	Change from last year’s rank
1.	School	11,757	+44
2.	Chocolate	9,515	+15
3.	Twitter	8,642	+8
4.	Swearing	7,132	-2
5.	Alcohol	6,325	0
6.	Soda	5,446	-3
7.	Social networking	4,197	-3
8.	Sweets	4,188	+8
9.	Fast food	4,088	0
10.	Lent	2,842	+118
11.	Meat	2,790	+26
12.	Homework	2,760	+61
13.	Junk food	2,723	+8
14.	Coffee	2,678	+123
15.	Sex	2,392	+112
16.	Chips	2,129	-10
17.	Bread	2,020	+114
18.	You	2,016	+21
19.	Facebook	1,926	0
20.	Pizza	1,628	+122
21.	Starbucks	1,566	+120
22.	Candy	1,412	+87
23.	Instagram	1,212	-13
24.	Religion	1,147	+104
25.	Virginity	1,143	-18
26.	Cookies	1,053	-14
27.	Work	1,031	+4
28.	Ice cream	1,025	+27
29.	Boys	1,021	+99
30.	Marijuana	1,018	-22
31.	Smoking	994	-9
32.	Beer	939	+104
33.	Life	933	-8
34.	Food	930	+27
35.	McDonalds	926	+20
36.	Winter	853
37.	Netflix	851	-7
38.	College	819	+16
39.	My phone	777	+6
40.	Shopping	748	+103
41.	Stuff	733	+100
42.	Selfies	731	+1
43.	Chipotle	726	+100
44.	Masturbation	725	-30
45.	Sugar	682	+82
46.	Cheese	670	+94
47.	Me	656	+87
48.	Sobriety	655	-17
49.	Wine	652	+94
50.	Carbs	648	+81
51.	Boosie	581
52.	Fried food	574	-23
53.	Caffeine	563	+70
54.	Rice	562	+86
55.	Catholicism	561	-28
56.	Snapchat	543	+11
57.	Coke	541	-22
58.	Procrastination	517	-18
59.	People	516	+54
60.	Snow	506
61.	Desserts	486	-37
62.	Fizzy drinks	480	+81
63.	French fries	475	-29
64.	Takeout	464	-49
65.	Obama	452	+74
66.	Makeup	451	-25
67.	Taco Bell	434	+39
68.	Feelings	434	-32
68.	Porn	430
69.	Nothing	427	+74
70.	My swag	420	-47
71.	Negativity	417	+28
72.	Red meat	396	+59
73.	Diet Coke	390	+69
74.	Sarcasm	380
75.	Breathing	369
76.	Caring	357	+66
77.	Complaining	354
78.	Tea	352	+64
79.	Pancakes	340	+63
80.	Peanut butter	336
81.	Sweet tea	335
82.	Booze	325	+61
83.	Sleep	320	+33
84.	Hope	316	+46
85.	Cake	313	-13
86.	Pasta	303	+57
87.	TV	302	+30
88.	Texting	297	+52
89.	Eating out	275	-29
90.	Exercise	274	-47
91.	Pants	270	+5
92.	Electricity	268	+41
93.	The gym	258	+16
94.	Liquor	245
95.	Church	243	-46
96.	Tinder	237	+35
97.	Tumblr	236	+46
98.	Math	236	+20
98.	Juice	232	+35
99.	Being mean	230
100.	Chick Fil A	228	-38

Categories

Rank	Category	Number of Tweets
1.	food	62,453
2.	school/work	18,148
3.	technology	17,615
4.	habits	16,616
5.	smoking/drugs/alcohol	12,665
6.	irony	7,319
7.	relationship	6,563
8.	sex	5,483
9.	health/hygiene	3,476
10.	religion	2,784
11.	generic	2,504
12.	entertainment	1,959
13.	weather	1,496
14.	shopping	1,183
15.	celebrity	961
16.	sports	780
17.	politics	547
18.	clothes	540
19.	money	492
20.	habit	393
21.	possessions	217
22.	clothing	62

Historical Trends

This year I added a new Historical Lent Tracker that you can use to investigate Lenten trends on your own over the past six years.

Here are some of my favorite graphs:

Second-Wave Social Media

Tumblr peaked in 2011, and WhatsApp, which Facebook recently paid $19 billion for, doesn’t register highly.

Fast Food Restaurants

Chipotle is much higher on the list than I expected–is that because people love it or because they hate it?

One Direction vs. Justin Bieber

Snack Foods

Congratulations, Hot Cheetos, on being the snack the most people want to give up.

Media Coverage

The Lent Tracker got some media attention this year. In roughly chronological order:

• What To Give Up for Lent 2014? Twitter Reveals Top 100 Choices (Christianity Today)
• Twitter Lent Tracker Reveals Top 100 Things People (Say They) Are Giving Up (Huffington Post)
• 100 Things Christians Are Giving Up for Lent This Year (The Blaze)
• Forty Days Without (Inlander)
• What Are You Giving up for Lent: Question of the Day (Cleveland Plain Dealer)
• What Are You Giving Up for Lent? (Lancaster Online)
• Social Networks Shows Popularity of Lenten Sacrifices (Pasadena Star-News)
• Why You Shouldn’t Tweet About What You’re Giving Up for Lent (New Republic)
• The 25 Most Popular Things to Give Up for Lent Online (Washington Post)
• Giving Up Something For Lent? Shhh. (Slate)
• More Giving up Twitter and Facebook for Lent (WSJ MarketWatch)

Finally, this Wall Street Journal article doesn’t talk about the Lent tracker, but it discusses the fraught phenomenon of Ash Wednesday selfies: Selfies Bring Ashtags to Lent. (This article may or may not be behind a paywall for you.)

See the top 100 things people are giving up in 2014 for Lent on Twitter, continually updated until March 7, 2014.

As I write this post, with about 5,000 tweets analyzed, the new hot topics so far this year are: “Netflix,” “Flappy Bird,” and “Getting an Oscar.” “Social Networking” is currently way out in front, with twice as many tweets as perennial favorites “Swearing” and “Alcohol.” (Last year, Social Networking came in at #4.)

Look for the usual post-mortem on March 8, 2014.

This year saw a lot of churn in the top 100 things people were giving up for Lent.

The pope announced his resignation on Monday, leading many to say that he was giving up “being pope” for Lent. It came in at #1. (Related, at #18, people said they were giving up “the pope” for Lent.)

Specific social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook generally dropped this year, with the generic term “social networking” (#4) taking over as a catchall. Instagram (#10), Pinterest (#52), and Snapchat (#78) were all new to the top 100.

With Valentine’s Day falling on the day after Ash Wednesday this year, it came in at #13. My wife suggests that the timing may also have contributed to the drop in “chocolate” from #2 last year to #17 this year. “Valentines” is #97.

“Horse meat” (#20) refers to the ongoing European scandal.

The only celebrity to make the list was British boy band One Direction, up substantially at #41.

I learned several new words this year: “twerking” (#34), a type of dance move, “selfies” (#46), or self-shot photos taken with a phone, “subtweeting” (#57), or tweeting about someone without mentioning them by name, “oomf” (#71), or “one of my [Twitter] followers,” and “Nando’s” (#76), a chicken restaurant.

This list draws from 263,000 tweets from February 10-15, 2013, and excludes most retweets.

Rank	Word	Count	Change from last year’s rank
1.	Being pope	5,654
2.	Swearing	4,944	+1
3.	Soda	2,648	+2
4.	Social networking	2,264	+19
5.	Alcohol	2,217	-1
6.	Chips	1,690	+8
7.	Virginity	933	+23
8.	Marijuana	784	+17
9.	Fast food	776	-2
10.	Instagram	755	+270
11.	Twitter	672	-10
12.	Cookies	643	+19
13.	Valentine's day	514
14.	Masturbation	510	+18
15.	Takeout	465	+59
16.	Sweets	444	-7
17.	Chocolate	417	-15
18.	The pope	394	+10,224
19.	Facebook	380	-13
20.	Horse meat	375
21.	Junk food	362	-8
22.	Smoking	355	-3
23.	My swag	331	+373
24.	Desserts	325	+21
25.	Life	325	+40
26.	New year's resolutions	313	+47
27.	My boyfriend	309	+99
28.	Catholicism	255	+11
29.	Straightening my hair	228	+89
30.	Fried food	225	+5
31.	Netflix	216	+255
32.	Work	216	-5
33.	Sobriety	213	+4
34.	Twerking	185	+698
35.	The playoffs	184	+3,556
36.	French fries	173	+19
37.	Coke	168	+1
38.	Feelings	168	+207
39.	Laziness	160	+28
40.	Meat	158	-30
41.	Onedirection	155	+103
42.	You	154	-24
43.	Procrastination	153	+1
44.	Makeup	150	+16
45.	Internet	149	+61
46.	Selfies	149	+2,328
47.	Exercise	144	+58
48.	School	141	-36
49.	My phone	135	+15
50.	Classes	129	+84
51.	Dip	127	+132
52.	Pinterest	125	+133
53.	Church	124	+33
54.	Emotions	122	+397
55.	Going to school	119	+163
56.	My girlfriend	111	+207
57.	Subtweeting	110	+253
58.	College	106	+5
59.	My face	106	+4,168
60.	Ice cream	106	-27
61.	McDonald's	102	-32
62.	Being ugly	101	+256
63.	Snacking	99	+19
64.	Spending	96	+89
65.	Dunkin Donuts	96	+475
66.	Chew	95	+418
67.	Eating out	94	+28
68.	Elevators	94	+99
69.	Food	93	-47
70.	Moaning	93	+123
71.	Oomf	93	+78
72.	Chick Fil A	90	+135
73.	Healthy food	88	+180
74.	Football	87	+145
75.	Swimming	87	+200
76.	Nando's	86	+72
77.	DVDs	84	+1,326
78.	Snapchat	84
79.	Broccoli	83	+206
80.	Ranch	81	+250
81.	The snooze button	80	+176
82.	Crystal meth	80	+219
83.	Dignity	79	+116
84.	Cake	77	-13
85.	Unhealthy food	77	+34
86.	Homework	76	-65
87.	Busyness	75
88.	Schoolwork	74	+88
89.	Chemistry	74	+34,949
90.	Frozen yogurt	72	+480
91.	iPhone	72	+100
92.	FIFA	71	+143
93.	Betting	70	+315
94.	Doing homework	69	+158
95.	Myself	68	+267
96.	Supermarkets	67	+1,797
97.	Valentines	66
98.	Domino's	63	+323
99.	Being negative	63	+212
100.	Hookah	63	+340

Categories

Rank	Category	Number of Tweets
1.	food	11,642
2.	habits	8,083
3.	religion	6,519
4.	technology	4,782
5.	smoking/drugs/alcohol	3,928
6.	sex	1,771
7.	relationship	1,399
8.	health/hygiene	1,270
9.	school work	1,095
10.	irony	792
11.	sports	648
12.	entertainment	392
13.	celebrity	246
14.	clothes	235
15.	money	133
16.	shopping	111

The image is a Wordle.

See the top 100 things people are giving up in 2013 for Lent on Twitter, continually updated until February 15, 2013.

As I write this post, with about 5,000 tweets analyzed, the new hot topics so far this year are: meowing, Valentine’s Day, and Snapchat.

Look for the usual post-mortem on February 16, 2013.

This year, Twitter continues to take top honors. Facebook drops a few places compared to last year–has it become less-central to people’s lives? This year’s hot new site, Pinterest, almost makes the list, showing up at #118. (Incidentally, Pinterest has a number of Lent-related boards.)

Chocolate comes in at #2–however, if you add up all the mentions of chocolate in its various forms (“chocs,” “chocolate chips,” etc.), it totals over 14,000 mentions, enough to put it at #1.

This year’s biggest gainers are “breathing” and “makeup,” both of which jumped up more than 30 places in the list.

No celebrities make the top 100 this year. Boy band One Direction (aka #1D) is at #144, followed by Justin Bieber at #194 and Tim Tebow at #221. Last year’s curiosity, Charlie Sheen, only got two mentions; he dropped to #10,000 or so.

Overall, food was by far the most popular thing given up.

This list draws from about 300,000 tweets from February 19-25, 2012, and excludes retweets.

Rank	Word	Count	Change from last year’s rank
1.	Twitter	13,937	0
2.	Chocolate	13,001	+1
3.	Swearing	11,737	+1
4.	Alcohol	9,998	+1
5.	Soda	9,942	+2
6.	Facebook	9,025	-4
7.	Fast food	6,529	+3
8.	Sex	6,146	-2
9.	Sweets	4,973	+2
10.	Meat	4,444	-1
11.	Lent	4,171	-3
12.	School	3,976	+1
13.	Junk food	3,388	+6
14.	Chips	3,150	+4
15.	Coffee	2,263	0
16.	Candy	2,217	+6
17.	Bread	2,124	+3
18.	You	2,056	-2
19.	Smoking	2,002	+2
20.	Giving up things	2,001	-8
21.	Homework	1,908	+11
22.	Food	1,800	+5
23.	Social networking	1,754	-6
24.	Religion	1,701	-10
25.	Marijuana	1,594	+4
26.	Beer	1,359	+4
27.	Work	1,331	-3
28.	Stuff	1,302	-3
29.	McDonald's	1,249	+21
30.	Virginity	1,152	+7
31.	Cookies	1,137	+3
32.	Masturbation	1,134	+4
33.	Ice cream	1,113	+15
34.	Shopping	1,068	-6
35.	Fried food	993	-4
36.	Boys	956	+6
37.	Sobriety	910	+7
38.	Coke	899	+3
39.	Catholicism	881	-13
40.	Cheese	858	-7
41.	Nothing	831	+5
42.	Carbs	818	+16
43.	Red meat	758	-8
44.	Procrastination	738	+1
45.	Desserts	733	+26
46.	Pizza	714	+15
47.	Pancakes	650	-9
48.	Sugar	645	-5
49.	Rice	633	-10
50.	Breathing	631	+34
51.	Me	628	+12
52.	Texting	627	+3
53.	Starbucks	623	+1
54.	Fizzy drinks	595	+12
55.	French fries	593	+7
56.	Diet Coke	572	+21
57.	Porn	562	+10
58.	Tumblr	548	+12
59.	Wine	546	-7
60.	Makeup	539	+31
61.	Liquor	534	-5
62.	Booze	530	-22
63.	College	524	+18
64.	My phone	508	+30
65.	Life	486
66.	Caffeine	466	-17
67.	Laziness	453	+11
68.	Chipotle	452	+30
69.	Tea	445	+6
70.	Chicken	442	+2
71.	Cake	440	+3
72.	Sarcasm	429	+4
73.	New Year's resolutions	422	+15
74.	Takeout	417	+11
75.	Men	412	-10
76.	Pork	394	-3
77.	Christianity	388	-18
78.	Sleep	386	+1
79.	People	384	+8
80.	Caring	377
81.	Juice	357	+11
82.	Snacking	345
83.	Lying	333
84.	TV	332	-31
85.	Complaining	331	-2
86.	Church	328	-35
87.	Him	327	+2
88.	Sweet tea	326
89.	Lint	326	-21
90.	Vegetables	324
91.	Talking	323
92.	Bacon	321
93.	Being mean	320
94.	Pasta	316
95.	Eating out	316	+5
96.	Negativity	314	-39
97.	Eating	298
98.	Biting my nails	294
99.	Nutella	291
100.	Being nice	258

Categories

Rank	Category	Number of Tweets
1.	food	79,977
2.	habits	21,836
3.	technology	19,190
4.	smoking/drugs/alcohol	19,073
5.	health/hygiene	11,101
6.	sex	9,948
7.	irony	9,352
8.	school/work	8,567
9.	relationship	6,919
10.	religion	4,157
11.	generic	2,841
12.	shopping	1,491
13.	entertainment	1,344
14.	money	526
15.	sports	512
16.	celebrity	461
17.	possessions	376
18.	clothes	111
19.	politics	105

The image is a Wordle.

See the top 100 things people are giving up for Lent on Twitter, continually updated for the next few days.

Look for the usual post-mortem later this week.

Congratulations, I guess, go this year to Charlie Sheen, who came in at both #23 and, with “tiger blood,” at #90. Justin Bieber is up several spots this year, so he hasn’t quite crested yet. The next-highest celebrity, who didn’t make the top 100, is British boy band One Direction.

“Trophies,” at #69, refers to the English soccer club Arsenal’s recent defeat, or something.

The later start to Lent this year means that “snow” doesn’t appear on the list–last year, it was #48. Myspace hangs on at #99, dropping 48 places.

This list draws from 85,000 tweets from March 7-10, 2011, and excludes retweets.

Rank	Word	Count	Change from last year’s rank
1.	Twitter	4297	0
2.	Facebook	4060	0
3.	Chocolate	3185	0
4.	Swearing	2527	+1
5.	Alcohol	2347	-1
6.	Sex	2093	+3
7.	Soda	1959	-1
8.	Lent	1493	-1
9.	Meat	1352	-1
10.	Fast food	1303	0
11.	Sweets	1252	0
12.	Giving up things	778	+7
13.	School	768	+27
14.	Religion	745	+1
15.	Coffee	707	-3
16.	You	675	+6
17.	Social networking	665	+15
18.	Chips	664	+3
19.	Junk food	594	-1
20.	Bread	571	+6
21.	Smoking	555	-4
22.	Candy	541	-8
23.	Charlie Sheen	511
24.	Work	482	+4
25.	Stuff	467	-2
26.	Catholicism	436	-10
27.	Food	395	+3
28.	Shopping	363	+1
29.	Marijuana	358	+31
30.	Beer	346	-10
31.	Fried food	307	-7
32.	Homework	306	+27
33.	Cheese	297	+4
34.	Cookies	293	+11
35.	Red meat	285	-10
36.	Masturbation	285	+8
37.	Virginity	253	+26
38.	Pancakes	252	+20
39.	Rice	236	-5
40.	Booze	235	+2
41.	Coke	234	-3
42.	Boys	229	+24
43.	Sugar	229	-16
44.	Sobriety	226	+10
45.	Procrastination	226	-10
46.	Nothing	219	+21
47.	Winning	219
48.	Ice cream	211	-7
49.	Caffeine	203	-16
50.	McDonald's	195	+27
51.	Church	188	+28
52.	Wine	188	-3
53.	TV	184	-7
54.	Starbucks	183	-15
55.	Texting	182	-12
56.	Liquor	181	-1
57.	Negativity	180	+26
58.	Carbs	179	+10
59.	Christianity	177	-12
60.	Justin Bieber	176	+9
61.	Pizza	175	-11
62.	French fries	159	+2
63.	Me	157	+9
64.	Losing	155
65.	Men	152	-13
66.	Fizzy drinks	151
67.	Porn	147	+4
68.	Lint	147	-11
69.	Trophies	144
70.	Tumblr	144
71.	Desserts	142	-15
72.	Chicken	140	+15
73.	Pork	139	-3
74.	Cake	132	+8
75.	Tea	127	+19
76.	Sarcasm	127	+14
77.	Diet Coke	119	-16
78.	Laziness	118	-13
79.	Sleep	117	-6
80.	Jesus	115	-4
81.	College	111
82.	Internet	110	-46
83.	Complaining	108	-9
84.	Breathing	103
85.	Takeout	98
86.	Beef	98	-8
87.	People	96	+11
88.	New Year's resolutions	96	+1
89.	Him	94	-5
90.	Tiger blood	92
91.	Makeup	91
92.	Juice	90	-7
93.	Clothes	89
94.	My phone	88
95.	God	87	-15
96.	Abstinence	85	-15
97.	Stress	84
98.	Chipotle	82
99.	Myspace	81	-48
100.	Eating out	81	-25

Image created using Wordle.

Let’s look a little more at some of the data on what Twitterers are giving up for Lent.

Categories of Things Given up by Location

As I only track in English what people are giving up, there are concentrations in English-speaking countries.

Size indicates the relative number of Twitterers in each country giving up something for Lent.

Categories of Things Given up by State

These visualizations show the differences (or lack thereof) in what people are giving up among U.S. states.

Size indicates the relative number of Twitterers in each state giving up something for Lent. Sorry, Alaska and Hawaii.

The composition of each state’s categories of tweets shows mostly minor variations among states. Some states (like Wyoming on the far right) have small numbers of tweets. I would have liked to use opacity or width to indicate this disparity but couldn’t figure out how to do it.

Comparison between 2009 and 2010

This treemap shows how the data changed between 2009 and 2010. The size of the box shows the number of people giving up each category and thing, while color indicates the percentage change from last year: dark blue indicates the steepest drop; dark orange indicates the steepest rise. The second chart shows the same data more conventionally expressed.

About the Visualizations

I created these charts mostly to explore how the new data-analysis software Tableau Public works. One of its claims to fame is that you can publish interactive visualizations to the web, a feature I didn’t take advantage of here. Tableau doesn’t do treemaps, so I used Many Eyes to create the treemap; the closest Tableau equivalent appears below the treemap.

Snow makes the list this year, understandable given the Snowpocalypse and Snowmageddon that gripped much of the Eastern U.S. in the weeks preceding Ash Wednesday. IPods also made the list after the Bishop of Liverpool asked people to consider praying instead of listening to them. This year a celebrity, Justin Bieber, cracks the top 100. He beat out the Jonas Brothers, 64 votes to 11; draw your own conclusions.

The list largely tracks last year’s list. It draws from 40,000 tweets retrieved February 14-20, 2010.

Complete List of the Top 100

Rank	Word	Count	Change from last year's rank
1.	Twitter	2089	+1
2.	Facebook	1874	-1
3.	Chocolate	1323	0
4.	Alcohol	1258	+1
5.	Swearing	1158	+5
6.	Soda	1126	0
7.	Lent	792	-3
8.	Meat	720	0
9.	Sex	701	+7
10.	Fast food	695	+7
11.	Sweets	627	0
12.	Coffee	445	-5
13.	iPod	437
14.	Candy	325	+18
15.	Religion	305	-6
16.	Catholicism	264	-4
17.	Smoking	254	+5
18.	Junk food	251	+34
19.	Giving up things	241	-6
20.	Beer	241	-5
21.	Chips	234	+24
22.	You	233	+13
23.	Stuff	217	-3
24.	Fried food	199	+33
25.	Red meat	193	+19
26.	Bread	187	+13
27.	Sugar	183	-8
28.	Work	176	-14
29.	Shopping	174	+11
30.	Food	162	-7
31.	Shame	150
32.	Social networking	147	-2
33.	Caffeine	136	-6
34.	Rice	136	+44
35.	Procrastination	127	-11
36.	Internet	126	-11
37.	Cheese	120	+1
38.	Coke	120	+41
39.	Starbucks	119	+14
40.	School	118	+36
41.	Ice cream	118	+13
42.	Booze	117	-21
43.	Texting	114	+28
44.	Masturbation	111
45.	Cookies	110	+11
46.	TV	97	-18
47.	Christianity	96	0
48.	Snow	96
49.	Wine	92	-13
50.	Pizza	91	+12
51.	MySpace	91	+4
52.	Men	90	+31
53.	Giving up	89	-19
54.	Sobriety	89	-13
55.	Liquor	87
56.	Desserts	87
57.	Lint	87	-20
58.	Pancakes	82	-29
59.	Homework	81	+28
60.	Marijuana	80
61.	Diet Coke	80	-28
62.	Hope	78	+15
63.	Virginity	76
64.	French fries	75	-15
65.	Laziness	71	+5
66.	Boys	67
67.	Nothing	67	-19
68.	Carbs	66	-4
69.	Justin Bieber	64
70.	Pork	64
71.	Porn	63	+9
72.	Me	62	0
73.	Sleep	61	-42
74.	Complaining	58	-16
75.	Eating out	58	-8
76.	Jesus	55	-26
77.	McDonald's	55
78.	Beef	54	+18
79.	Church	54	+6
80.	God	53	-21
81.	Abstinence	53	-39
82.	Cake	52
83.	Negativity	52
84.	Him	49
85.	Juice	47
86.	Celibacy	44	+13
87.	Chicken	42
88.	Lying	42
89.	New Year's resolutions	42	-29
90.	Sarcasm	42	-39
91.	Snacking	41
92.	My wife	39
93.	Tea	37
94.	iPhone	37
95.	Exercise	36	-6
96.	Sweet tea	35
97.	People	35
98.	Vegetables	34
99.	Pasta	33
100.	Self control	33

Image created using Wordle.

Some you’d expect (alcohol, chocolate), some are ironic (giving up Lent for Lent, giving up giving up things), some are odd (pants, lint), some are anti-religious (religion, Catholicism), and some are tech-related (Facebook, Twitter—even “Facebook and Twitter” makes the list).

Complete List

1. Facebook (654)
2. Twitter (317)
3. Chocolate (272)
4. Lent (216)
5. Alcohol (187)
6. Soda (139)
7. Coffee (129)
8. Meat (126)
9. Religion (102)
10. Swearing (94)
11. Sweets (92)
12. Catholicism (90)
13. Giving up things (80)
14. Work (70)
15. Beer (60)
16. Sex (59)
17. Fast food (57)
18. Facebook and twitter (57)
19. Sugar (45)
20. Stuff (43)
21. Booze (41)
22. Smoking (39)
23. Food (39)
24. Procrastination (38)
25. Internet (37)
26. Cursing (36)
27. Caffeine (35)
28. TV (33)
29. Pancakes (33)
30. Social networking (33)
31. Sleep (32)
32. Candy (32)
33. Diet Coke (29)
34. Giving up (29)
35. You (28)
36. Wine (28)
37. Lint (28)
38. Cheese (28)
39. Bread (26)
40. Shopping (26)
41. Sobriety (26)
42. Abstinence (24)
43. Cussing (24)
44. Red meat (24)
45. Chips (23)
46. Internet porn (22)
47. Christianity (22)
48. Nothing (21)
49. French fries (21)
50. Jesus (21)
51. Sarcasm (19)
52. Junk food (19)
53. Starbucks (18)
54. Ice cream (18)
55. MySpace (18)
56. Cookies (18)
57. Fried food (17)
58. Complaining (17)
59. God (16)
60. New years resolutions (15)
61. Social media (15)
62. Pizza (14)
63. Tweeting (14)
64. Carbs (13)
65. MySpace and Facebook (13)
66. Carbon (13)
67. Eating out (13)
68. Stress (13)
69. Flaky guys (12)
70. Laziness (12)
71. Texting (12)
72. Me (11)
73. Some of your money (11)
74. Annoying me (11)
75. Sacrifice (11)
76. School (11)
77. Hope (10)
78. Rice (10)
79. Coke (10)
80. Porn (10)
81. The snooze button (10)
82. Guilt (10)
83. Men (9)
84. Obama (9)
85. Church (9)
86. My job (9)
87. Homework (9)
88. Self denial (9)
89. Moderation (9)
90. Exercise (8)
91. Bacon (8)
92. Dieting (8)
93. Paying taxes (8)
94. Dr Pepper (8)
95. Gossip (8)
96. Beef (8)
97. Pants (7)
98. My sanity (7)
99. Celibacy (7)
100. Shaving (7)

About

Created using the Twitter Search API and Wordle. Data based on analysis of 15,000 tweets from February 22-26, 2009.