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One President Dominated Twitter’s Top Tweets of 2017, and It Wasn’t Donald Trump

By
Natasha Bach
Natasha Bach
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By
Natasha Bach
Natasha Bach
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December 5, 2017, 8:36 AM ET

As 2017 winds down, President Donald Trump continues to make headlines via his active Twitter account on a near-daily basis. But for all his furious posting, the tweeter-in-chief failed to make Twitter’s lists of most-liked and most-retweeted posts of 2017.

So who did take the No. 1 slots? Those prizes, announced Tuesday, went to former President Barack Obama and—interestingly enough—a teenager on a quest for chicken nuggets.

Read: Twitter Backtracks on Why It Didn’t Block Trump’s Anti-Muslim Tweets

Former President Barack Obama had the most-liked tweet of the year. His post in response to the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville this summer received 4.6 million likes. Another tweet, which he shared after Senator John McCain’s brain cancer diagnosis was made public, received more than 2 million likes, making it the third most-liked of 2017.

"No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion…" pic.twitter.com/InZ58zkoAm

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 13, 2017

John McCain is an American hero & one of the bravest fighters I've ever known. Cancer doesn't know what it's up against. Give it hell, John.

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) July 20, 2017

Obama was also responsible for three of the ten most-retweeted tweets of the year. The Charlottesville tweet came in at No. 2, with 1.7 million retweets.

The No. 1 retweeted spot, meanwhile, went to a teenager trying to get a year of free chicken nuggets from Wendy’s. The teen’s tweet received more than 3.6 million retweets but fell well short of the 18 million target set by Wendy’s. (The fast food chain gave him the year supply of chicken anyway.)

HELP ME PLEASE. A MAN NEEDS HIS NUGGS pic.twitter.com/4SrfHmEMo3

— Carter Wilkerson (@carterjwm) April 6, 2017

Two tweets that Obama shared at the end of his presidency ranked fifth and eighth among the most-retweeted. Obama’s thank you and call for change received 869,000 retweets, landing at No. 5. “Thank you for everything,” he posted. “My last ask is the same as my first. I’m asking you to believe—not in my ability to create change, but in yours.” And his final tweet as president received a respectable 630,000 retweets to land at No. 8. In it, he said, “It’s been the honor of my life to serve you. You made me a better leader and a better man.”

 

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