formats

A sincere question about protecting children from wild pigs, asked in the middle of a gun-control argument. About four days of the best jokes of the year and then, correctly, silence.

A musician recounting how he made his nine-year-old work out a tin opener for six hours. The first main character of 2021, on 2 January; the account was deleted by the 3rd.

'Bestie' — best friend — as the 2021 way of addressing a stranger online, sincerely or in a warning: 'bestie, no'. The record's entry for the intimacy that costs nothing, and the reason a comment section sounds like a sleepover.

'Big if true' — the reply to a claim that would matter if it were real, from political Twitter into the caption for any rumour: 'huge if true'. The record's entry for the conditional as a verdict, and for the fact that most things that were big if true were not.

A badge meaning the account was who it said it was. Sold for $8 a month from November 2022, at which point it meant the opposite.

The week after the 2024 US election when a million people a day left X for Bluesky, made 'starter packs' of who to follow, and posted about how nice it was. The record's entry for the third Twitter exodus, and the first one with a butterfly.

Crowd-written corrections that appear under a post, which became a meme in their own right: the note that ratios the post, the note on the owner's post, the 'readers added context' as a phrase. The record's entry for fact-checking as a punchline.

'Delete this' — the reply to a post that is too embarrassing, too bad or too funny to remain — and 'delete your account', its 2016 escalation, said by one presidential candidate to another. The record's entry for the request that has never been honoured, and for the post that is, in every case, still up.