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What Twitterers Are Giving up for Lent (2013 Edition)

The top 100 things that people on Twitter are giving up for Lent in 2013.

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.

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