2016 as seen on social media

Social media giants have released their end of year reviews.


The top 10 global topics discussed on Facebook:

  1. US Presidential Election
  2. Brazilian Politics
  3. Pokemon Go
  4. Black Lives Matter
  5. Philippine Presidential Election
  6. Olympics
  7. Brexit
  8. Super Bowl
  9. David Bowie
  10. Muhammad Ali

At least most of us will have heard of these trending topics.  Over on YouTube, the top trending videos are a bizarre collection of popular culture, popular science and the inexplicable.  These top 10 videos have attracted 550 million views between them.

  1. Adele Carpool Karaoke
  2. Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen/PIKO-TARO
  3. What's inside a rattlesnake rattle?
  4. Nike Football presents: The Switch
  5. Grace VanderWaal: 12-Year-Old ukulele player on America's Got Talent 2016
  6. Water Bottle Flip Edition
  7. Channing Tatum & Beyonce's "Run The World (Girls)" vs. Jenna Dewan-Tatum's "Pony" | Lip Sync Battle
  8. Donald Trump: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
  9. The 21,000 first class airplane ticket
  10. Brothers convince little sister of zombie apocalypse

Twitter's top 10 global trends

  1. #Rio2016
  2. #Election2016
  3. #PokemonGo
  4. #Euro2016
  5. #Oscars
  6. #Brexit
  7. #BlackLivesMatter
  8. #Trump
  9. #RIP (associated with a range of celebrity deaths)
  10. #GameOfThrones

The UK’s biggest Twitter moment was England’s defeat by Iceland in the Euro 2016 tournament.

Spotify's end of year report is much more engaging.  Not only can you learn which artists were the most streamed of 2016 (Drake; Rihanna; Sia if you want to know) but you can also learn about new, emerging genres of music and stay ahead of the crowd by listening to underground Latin hip-hop, witch house music or Brazilian gospel.

Finally, Facebook is still throwing its personal Year in Review video at its users – and still getting it wrong.