Once in a lifetime

By
Monday, 14 November 2011

Increasingly people flock to Twitter to discover information and connect around occurrences like natural disasters, sporting events and cultural moments. And then there are times when Twitter is where you might go to experience an infrequent curiosity.

Take last Friday, which was November 11, 2011. Whether you were inclined to crack a joke about this rare binary occurrence, wax poetic about its meaning, or join in a global game to share photos at 11 a.m. and 11 p.m., numerology dominated the conversation.

This clip is a visualization of all the Tweets mentioning 11:11 on 11.11.11. Each “1” is a location that moves with the conversation on Twitter. Their scale varies depending on the volume of Tweets posted from the location they represent. You can see the main wave move from right to left, and then a second one that occurred at 11 p.m. around the world.

A special thanks to our own @miguelrios, whose visualizations of this data demonstrate moments on Twitter that can unite us all.