View a history of hashtags through 2013

X (Twitter) started as a way to share short updates via text

What began as a way to share 140-character updates quickly grew into a vital platform for activism, politics, and pop culture. Hashtags, trending topics, and retweets—now common across the internet—originated on the platform.

The first-ever tweet on X was sent on March 21, 2006, at 9:50 pm

The short, declarative message launched what would eventually become one of the world's most influential social media platforms. As of 2020, about 10% of X users are responsible for 92% of all posts.

Social media can be a valuable public health tool, combating misinformation, advancing health research, boosting social mobilization, and raising awareness of health services and events.

The 'Miracle on the Hudson' showed heroism in the air and changed social media forever

On Jan. 15, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 lost both engines after hitting birds and was safely landed in the Hudson River. The event was a turning point for Twitter, as a photo and a tweet quickly spread—marking Twitter's rise as a real-time news source.

The first social media platforms date back to the late 1990s, and their algorithms were typically chronological, with entities like MySpace and Facebook feeding users content from the most recent posts to the oldest.

Explore an interactive history of Google search trends

This interactive allows users to browse for the most searched topics on Google Search since 1999 and provides noteworthy statistics. Topics are sorted by categories, including athletes, movies, reality TV, dog breeds, and sauces.

See a visual representation Elon Musk's many tweets over a decade

Musk was known for tweeting often long before he purchased Twitter, later renaming the social network "X." One week in August 2024, Elon Musk posted 650 times. This data visualization shows an analysis of roughly 15,000 of his tweets from 2011 to 2021.

Facebook's internal documents show that though the company publicly plays down Instagram's harms, its own research found that Instagram has promoted mental health issues for teens.

View the list of most followed users on X

X, formerly Twitter, may now face more competition from rival social networks than ever, but it also had over 650 million active users as of early 2025. Elon Musk, Barack Obama, and Cristiano Ronaldo led the list of most-followed accounts then.

The history of Reddit, the front page of the internet

The hyperactive online forum and social media platform has transformed since 2006 from a simple link-sharing site to a behemoth in digital media. Topping off its ascendancy, Reddit went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2024, solidifying its future amid a shifting technological climate. Dive into Reddit's nearly two decades of growth with this detailed timeline.

The evolution of X, from startup to Musk-owned giant, reflects rapid tech shifts

Twitter began in 2006 as a side project and grew into a major global platform, widely used for news, activism, and political discourse. Despite mainstream success, it faced ongoing management turmoil, business struggles, and rising concerns over misinformation and user safety.

Most memes now begin on TikTok

The website Know Your Meme looked at the data for 700 to 1,400 memes uploaded to the platform each year from 2010 to 2022. In 2010, a majority of memes began on YouTube (34%) or 4chan (28%), but by 2022 most were starting on TikTok.

As of 2025, Wikipedia is one of the top 10 most-visited sites in the world

Alphabet Inc.'s Google search engine and YouTube received nearly 150 billion combined visits in November, followed by Facebook, ChatGPT, and Instagram, which each received over 5 billion visits during the same span. With 4.42 billion visits for the month, Wikipedia ranked just behind Reddit's 4.85 billion.

Facebook launched its 'like' button and Twitter its 'retweet' button in 2009, innovations psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues rewired social media to reward outrage over accuracy.

See the original websites for companies like Google, Facebook, and Apple

Explore archived images of homepages on websites dating all the way back to 1991.

X is a social media platform focused on real-time communication and content sharing

Users post and interact through short messages known as tweets. As of February 2025, X receives over 4.83 billion monthly visits, with users spending an average of 34 minutes daily on the platform.

A timeline of Google's growth

As of 2025, Google will approach its third decade of existence. A period that's seen the company go from dominating the search market to the launch of one billion-user product after another, from Gmail to YouTube. This detailed timeline lays out what happened when, laying out Google's history in detail. It marks key milestones, like the introduction of Google Maps, and what year they happened.

Google reveals the top searches of 2023

Google Search remains the world's most popular online search engine, and the tech behemoth reveals the most common searches from at the end of every year. See global as well as more local trends in most common searches for people, films, and more.

Defining 2025's internet slang

The internet is a slang factory, and new terms regularly crop up. This list breaks down some of the newest terms to hit social media, including "aura farming" (the cultivation of charisma to attract others) and "clock it" (an encouragement to remember something important).

How the internet became the World Wide Web: a visualization

The internet was officially born in 1983 and had more than 150 million global users by 1997, creating an international web of seemingly separate networks. This data visualization shows the growth of the internet from 1997 to 2021. Data in this...

Explore an interactive timeline of the world's biggest data breaches and hacks, led by the 2024 National Public Data breach, which involved almost three billion stolen records, including full names and Social Security numbers.

Facebook dominated US social ad spend in the first half of 2024

This data visualization shows the social media platforms where advertisers spent the most money in the first six months of 2024, with Facebook leading the pack taking home 36.3% of US social ad spend.

A timeline and visuals on TikTok's rapid growth

The app that would become TikTok is known as Douyin in China, and this article recounts its history, acquisition of rival Musical.ly, and rebranding ahead of its lightning growth. One visualization shows how quickly TikTok reached 1B users.

See a map of the countries that have passed legislation restricting social media for children.

A history of raising the alarm, from rattles to 911

Because fires spread so quickly, communities around the world have deployed many tactics to raise the alarm to get help. This history from the Museum of Natural History dives into the use of rattles, bells, and brigades to gather help to fight fires, showing just how far we've come since 911 was introduced in 1968.

Memes emerged in the 1980s and 1990s

Today's Internet users might think of memes as references spread online through images, videos, and audio clips. But the merger between memes and the internet didn't happen until the 1980s and 1990s—years after the term meme was first coined to describe a different phenomenon.

View a tracker of the most popular search engines from 1993 to 2021

Before Google dethroned Yahoo! as the most popular search engine in 2002 on its way to dominating the market, significant shares of internet searches were conducted across multiple sites, including MSN, AOL, AskJeeves, and AltaVista.

In 2022, there were 4.2 billion social media users across the globe

Among them were 200 million creators. Linktree, a company that helps create links in people’s social media bios (and much more), gathered the most important numbers from 2022 to get a more accurate picture of what the creator economy looks like, numerically speaking.

Explore an interactive diary of the International Space Station

The tool enables users to learn about the daily events that occurred on the ISS since continuous human occupancy began on November 2, 2000. Upon selecting a date in the calendar, users can explore activity logs, relevant news, and multimedia content, including videos, photographs, and audiologs, from the onboard crew.

Explore features to customize your Facebook viewing experience

From prioritizing best friends and filtering what appears in the News Feed to viewing the digital history between you and anyone you're friends with, check out this list of shortcuts, features, tips, and tricks.

An interactive timeline of history, from beginning to middle

The history of humanity is a long, winding road, and the history of everything else is even more complex and interwoven. This interactive timeline takes users through the history of the world and includes links to related videos, blurbs, and events. Each event in history is represented by a dot, providing users with a glittering horizon filled with moments of intrigue and impact.

2025 showed that memes continue to blend politics and pop culture

This list from InsideHook ranks the top 25 memes of 2025. A recurring trend is the thin line between politics and popular culture, with users often using memes to comment on the state of the country. Of course, there was also a fair amount of highly specific and highly bizarre content, something the internet has been known to highlight.

50 famous memes and what they mean

Memes are one of the most immediate ways to communicate. The 50 most popular ones are found everywhere on the internet. Sources for this article came from Tumblr, Twitter, Know Your Meme, and other online pop culture resources and publications. This piece examines memes from the early 2000s through 2019.

Memes grew alongside the internet

Early memes featured static images with superimposed text, but grew animated with the advent of video-sharing sites like YouTube and GIF-friendly imageboards like 4chan.

X's bird logo cost just $15 and wasn't added until four years after launch

When Twitter launched in 2006, it featured green, slimy lettering and lacked the now-famous bird icon. The bird was adopted in 2010 and eventually became the platform's official logo—unofficially named Larry after NBA legend Larry Bird.

Social media algorithms are shaping real-life language through memes

The evolution of the internet in the early 2000s supercharged the creation and spread of memetic content. Now, highly tuned algorithms on platforms like TikTok and YouTube influence the language, phrasing, and content of creators, which shapes how we use language in the real world.

Before 'The Facebook', Mark Zuckerberg made 'Facemash.com'

During Mark Zuckerberg's sophomore year at Harvard, he built a website that allowed users to rank and rate people's pictures from the school's online "facebooks" called Facemash.com, which quickly went viral. He was placed on academic probation for violating the school's rules around data, privacy, and computer usage. Zuckerberg says the website was a prank and he never intended for so many people to see it. FaceMash is credited with being the predecessor to Facebook.

How Guinness became a social media trend

In early 2024, an unexpected meme emerged on Instagram and TikTok: "splitting the G," where Guinness drinkers would attempt to take a first sip big enough to leave the remaining beer perfectly aligned with the middle of the "G" on a Guinness pint glass. This Vinepair article explores where the trend came from and how it took off.

Reels have strongly influenced NASCAR’s social media strategy

With viewership and attendance tanking from 2008 to 2018, NASCAR knew it needed better marketing to reach the next generation of fans, so it designed a new social media and content creation strategy. Using these new methods, it achieved 27% follower growth in three years.

Music today is often intended to circulate on social media

Artists are increasingly using TikTok and other short form video platforms as a space to promote their music. One scholar notes this emphasis, and connect it to Taylor Swift's early use of social media to promote her own work and brand.

How TikTok ate the internet

TikTok is now deeply integrated into American culture, thanks to the app’s powerful algorithm and focus on entertainment which have influenced popular trends and social media content consumption in the US. This immersive piece highlights TikTok’s role in helping shape everything from music to fashion and even politics in the US—while its connection to China has also drawn scrutiny and raised national security concerns.

The iPhone reshaped culture, media, and communication through innovation

Cultural moments, such as Ellen's viral Oscars selfie and Taylor Swift's iPhone Notes statement, have demonstrated how deeply integrated the device has become into society. The film "Tangerine" and Kendrick Lamar's "Pride" were created with the iPhone, underscoring its use in media creation.

TikTok boasts nearly 1.8B monthly users

The app has surged in popularity recently, with usage surging during the COVID-19 pandemic. Those users have generated high revenues, too, with over $23B in 2024.

See the Russian Revolution reimagined as if it unfolded on social media

This creative project retells the lead-up to the 1917 October Revolution as a Facebook-style newsfeed, blending archival photos with excerpts from letters and diaries by figures like Trotsky, Gertrude Stein, and Stravinsky to recreate events in a modern format.

An image of a shark swimming on the freeway repeatedly fools viewers during natural disasters

The long-running joke traces back to 2011, following Hurricane Irene in Puerto Rico. Since then, pranksters have spread the image after Hurricane Matthew in 2016, Hurricane Harvey in 2017, and Hurricane Laura in 2020. The image is photo-edited, combining a 2005 photo of a kayaker being followed by a great white shark and a photo of a flooded street.

A creator economy timeline

Long before anyone memorized a TikTok dance, the creator economy began with regular people blogging about their personal lives. Eventually, it snowballed into the creator economy we know today. The Washington Post created an interactive timeline to help visualize how the creator economy got from point A to point B.

Explore an interactive timeline of the most important moments in the WEF’s history

This interactive traces the World Economic Forum’s evolution from a small European meeting in the 1970s into a global power hub, highlighting pivotal moments in Davos, landmark speeches, and turning points that have shaped its outsized influence on world affairs.

Google Searches have increased from 14 billion to 5.9 trillion from 1999 to 2025

As of 2025, an estimated 5.01 billion people use Google Search worldwide, with over 20% of activity conducted via voice search. "YouTube" is the most searched term, with an average monthly search volume of over 375 million.

Billboard began incorporating streaming in 2007

For nearly 50 years, the Billboard charts primarily relied on radio airplay and retail sales. But in 2007, the magazine began incorporating early streaming services AOL Music and Yahoo! Music into its methodology, and later worked with Spotify, YouTube, and other platforms. A single stream was not weighed as heavily as a purchase of a physical CD or vinyl record. Still, streaming’s impact became evident when songs with minimal radio airplay began climbing the charts, as seen with Baauer’s “Harlem Shake,” which did exceptionally well on YouTube.

Letterboxd, the social media app for movie reviews, was named one of Time's 100 most influential companies of 2026.