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This year, the usual trio of Twitter, social networking, and alcohol led the list, with Twitter taking the #1 spot for the first time since 2021.

This report draws from 9,817 tweets, the lowest number of Tweets I’ve ever tracked and down from a high of 646,000 in 2014. It only took ten tweets to make the top 100 this year, compared to 228 that year. On the other hand, the list of items in the top 100 has remained fairly stable: 56 of the top items from 2014 are also in the 2024 list.

Relationships

With Ash Wednesday falling on Valentine’s Day this year for the first time since 2018 (next time will be 2029, and then not again until 2170), relationship-related tweets rose. This year saw an increase in “situationships,” though it didn’t reach the top 100.

Sin

Giving up sin had a big uptick this year. I don’t have an explanation.

The Press

U.S. President Joe Biden said that he was giving up “you guys” for Lent, a reference to reporters.

Taylor Swift

Only eight tweets mentioned celebrities this year; seven of them were for Taylor Swift.

Top 100 Things Twitterers Gave Up for Lent in 2024

Rank	Word	Count	Change from last year’s rank
1.	Twitter	413	+1
2.	Social networking	348	+1
3.	Alcohol	341	-2
4.	Lent	238	0
5.	Chocolate	199	0
6.	Sweets	164	+4
7.	Meat	142	+7
8.	Giving up things	142	+7
9.	Swearing	127	-3
10.	Coffee	113	-3
11.	Soda	112	-3
12.	Sugar	107	+6
13.	Sex	86	-2
14.	Lying	71	+11
15.	Smoking	70	+8
16.	Men	70	-6
17.	Fast food	59	-5
18.	Marijuana	57	-5
19.	Catholicism	50	0
20.	Candy	47	+7
21.	Religion	47	-1
22.	Work	46	-6
23.	Red meat	46	+15
24.	Sin	45	+36
25.	Bread	42	0
26.	Chips	41	-2
27.	Liquor	40	-6
28.	Love	40	+31
29.	Valentines day	38
30.	Tiktok	37	-14
31.	Instagram	36	-8
32.	You	34	-10
33.	Food	34	0
34.	Sobriety	32	+6
35.	Life	32	-1
36.	Beer	32	-6
37.	The press	31
38.	Complaining	29	+10
39.	Hope	29	-2
40.	Hate	22	+4
41.	Gambling	21	+8
42.	Procrastination	21	+9
43.	Him	21	-14
44.	Yearning	20	+24
45.	Cookies	20	+9
46.	Fried food	20	-6
47.	Booze	20	-6
48.	Carbs	19	-1
49.	Masturbation	19	-18
50.	Junk food	19	-3
51.	Porn	18	-2
52.	Ice cream	18	+2
53.	Christianity	18	-5
54.	Caffeine	18	-19
55.	Hard liquor	18	-3
56.	Energy drinks	18	+4
57.	Gossip	17	-1
58.	Vaping	17	-13
59.	Pork	17	-6
60.	Losing	16	-7
61.	Desserts	16	-6
62.	Snacking	16	-12
63.	Coke	15	-12
64.	Being gay	15	-14
65.	My will to live	15	-9
66.	Homework	15	-20
67.	Meat on fridays	14
68.	Sanity	14	-14
69.	Being a hater	14	-21
70.	TV	14	-11
71.	Video games	14	-17
72.	Rice	14	-20
73.	New Year’s resolutions	13	-12
74.	Celibacy	13	-14
75.	Negativity	13	-13
76.	Dairy	13	-20
77.	Church	13	-21
78.	Reporters	12
79.	Pizza	12	-26
80.	Online shopping	12	-30
81.	Facebook	12	-42
82.	Sarcasm	12	-22
83.	Women	12	-34
84.	Fizzy drinks	11	-19
85.	Being nice	11	-24
86.	Cocaine	11	-22
87.	Gooning	11	-19
88.	Donald Trump	11	-20
89.	Wine	11	-42
90.	Breathing	11	-38
91.	Dating	11	-29
92.	Eggs	11	-28
93.	Nicotine	10	-42
94.	Depression	10	-36
95.	Scrolling	10
96.	Posting	10	-31
97.	People	10	-57
98.	Being single	10	-38
99.	Anger	10	-33
100.	Cake	10	-39

Top Categories

Rank	Category	Number of Tweets
1.	food	1,698
2.	technology	953
3.	smoking/drugs/alcohol	712
4.	habits	612
5.	irony	573
6.	relationship	329
7.	religion	212
8.	sex	210
9.	politics	83
10.	school/work	79
11.	entertainment	67
12.	money	45
13.	health/hygiene	34
14.	shopping	25
15.	sports	24
16.	possessions	8
17.	celebrity	8
18.	weather	4
19.	clothes	1

See the top 100 things people are giving up for Lent in 2024 on Twitter (i.e., X), which will be updated through February 16, 2024. You can also use the Historical Lent Tracker to see trends since 2009, though 2024 is still in flux, so I wouldn’t draw any conclusions about 2024 yet.

As I write this post on Monday morning, with about 350 tweets analyzed, “social networking,” “twitter,” and “chocolate” lead the list.

This year, since it would cost me $5,000 to use Twitter’s API to track what’s previously been free for the Lent Tracker, I’m having to take a more manual and sampled approach to tweets, which also means the results won’t be available in realtime the way they have been in years past; you can expect them to be updated a few times per day.

Look for the usual post-mortem on February 17, 2024.