A place for sharing news, opinions and pictures of your cat, we take a look at the trends and most tweeted about on Twitter in Aotearoa for 2018, thanks to Twitter New Zealand who crunched the numbers.
The Golden Tweet
The most retweeted tweet in New Zealand in 2018 celebrated Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s modern family setup with 15,691 retweets (and 55,445 likes for good measure).
NZ’s prime minister is having a baby with a man she’s not married to and he’s going to be a stay at home dad while she runs the country.
WELCOME TO 2018, MOTHERFUCKERS.— Janina Matthewson (@J9andIf) 18 January 2018
Ardern was the most mentioned politician of 2018, followed by Judith Collins and Simon Bridges. Green MPs Gloriz Ghahraman and Marama Davidson rounded out the top five.
However, Ardern didn’t make the top five of most followed New Zealanders, with musician Lorde taking out the top spot with 7.8 million folllowers.
This was followed by Kiwi actor KJ Apa, Kiwi-Canadian actor Daniel Gillies, Kim Dotcom and Zane Lowe.
The most mentioned musicians on New Zealand Twitter were all global, led by Ariana Grande. Shaun Mendes, Harry Styles, Kanye West and Nicki Minaj rounded up the top five.
The most tweeted about hashtags of 2018 were a mix of both local and global trends.
With a massive year in New Zealand politics, Aotearoa’s top trending hashtag of 2018 was #nzpol, the hashtag used to connect and converse about the political topics of the moment. The most tweeted terms related to #nzpol were tax, cannabis, union, Nauru and business confidence.
Today Aotearoa New Zealand finally passed legislation to create a legal, local #medicinalcannabis scheme. #nzpol pic.twitter.com/Pwfesu4ncS
— Chlöe Swarbrick (@_chloeswarbrick) 11 December 2018
The second most trending hashtag was #WorldCup, presumably about the Fifa World Cup in Russia won by France. In third position was online game #Fortnite which was also the most discussed entertainment topic in New Zealand.
Kiwis took to Twitter to connect, learn and discuss the pressing issues of our time, such as the#MeToo movement which was the fourth most popular hashtag and the most tweeted social movement in New Zealand. Other popular social movements were #climatechange, #suffrage125, #MarchForOurLives and #endfamilyviolence.
And who doesn’t love a wedding, with #RoyalWedding (presumably Harry and Meghan’s) the fifth most popular hashtag in New Zealand.
In terms of sports teams, The All Blacks were the most mentioned, however, didn’t feature on the top five most-tweeted sports hashtag.
? MAGIC MOODY | Remeber this try against France? Have you seen a better try from a prop in 2018? pic.twitter.com/EtZoqFcZ4I
— All Blacks (@AllBlacks) 12 December 2018
The Warriors, Black Caps, Black Ferns and Wellington rounded out the top five most mentioned sports teams.