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. | 755 | +270 | |
| 11. | 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. | 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. | 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.