First tweets of the rich and famous

Twitter celebrated its 10th anniversary this week. I thought it would be fun to look back at the first tweets of some of the rich and famous people that are today followed by millions.

But let’s start with the first tweet of all time, which of course is almost as famous as the platform itself — sent by co-founder Jack Dorsey.

Of course Jack Dorsey wasn’t alone in his endeavour, and while his first tweet is to the Internet what Neil Armstrong’s left foot is to the moon, those tweets that followed his have enjoyed little to no celebrity status.

One minute after Jack Dorsey was Biz Stone, who lacked a little originality with is first effort. Nine minutes after that, Noah Glass also seemingly got stage fright.

Since these tweets were not created by human hand, we’ll forgive the lack of variety, but this one certainly was:

The first 12 minutes of Twitter were done, but it wasn’t for a couple of hours until the fourth founder got on board and sent his first tweet. Enter Ev Williams, who of course moved from Twitter to creating this wonderful platform, Medium, that you’re reading this on today.

My own first tweet was no more inspiring than those that came from the pioneers above. But it was a truthful account of what I was doing almost two years exactly after that first tweet from Jack Dorsey was sent.

Of course, the rest is history. Twitter has since become an essential tool for journalists seeking real-time accounts of breaking news (although that wasn’t abundantly clear to them in the early days.

Celebrity watchers use it to gauge what’s happening among the stars of film, music, television and otherwise; marketers have grabbed a hold of it and won’t let go; politicians have got on board, and so too has the Pope; and it has sparked political revolutions in some parts of the world, for better or for worse.

But I wanted to go back to where it all began, so without further ado, let’s take a look at some of the most followed, and most famous people, using the platform, and how they introduced themselves to the world on it.

Katy Perry: Twitter’s most followed user (at time of writing) — 84.9 million— gave an early insight into how her fans could get an inside look into her world:

Justin Bieber, the platform’s second most popular figure with 77.6 million followers, was quickly on to the marketing muscle of Twitter:

Taylor Swift — whose username suggests 12 others went before her — brought a somewhat predictable “Internet cat” to her first tweet:

Kim Kardashian is not somebody I personally give a flying boot about, but she started her Twitter life in 2009 verifying herself:

In June of that same year, Twitter — in the face of threatened lawsuits and as a result of the amount of “fake” accounts popping up on the platform — introduced verified accounts — the fabled blue tick. One man who demanded it was Kanye West, who married Kim K of course and continues to make a name for himself on the platform. Sadly, his first tweet is really dull, so I’m not going to bother with it here.

While the parody accounts initially caused issues for Twitter, some of the more innocent ones continue to make us LOL, as they did with their very first tweets:

But away from the entertainers, it’s when you start looking at the world leaders that you realise how little gets done in politics to make the world a better place. Here’s Barack Obama’s first effort:

Of course while Obama is much-loved around the world, he is not beyond fault, as both Edward Snowden and Julian Assange revealed to the detriment of their own safety and personal freedom. Snowden’s first tweet is one of the best introductions you’ll ever see:

While Assange doesn’t have an account — not that I could find — his Wikileaks organisation does, and introduced itself to the world in 2009 in the way you would expect:

Enough politics. What about the tech world? Twitter’s arch rival Facebook— that is if you believe the media — started it’s Twitter life with a huge “up yours” to the 140 character limit:

Fellow Silicon Valley giant Google went all binary on us:

We’ve even had tweets from space, and here is the first of them:

In closing, it’s been a tough couple of years for Twitter, but with Jack Dorsey back in charge, I hope it finds its confidence again. It’s been a vital tool for me as a journalist, and I’ve rarely seen a downside to it. I use it in a variety of ways — like Google to search for things that are current or more recent; for live events and breaking news; for work, all the time.

I love it still, and hope it doesn’t turn away from its core. Here’s how Jack Dorsey responded to #RIPTwitter back in February, which certainly gives me hope that this little blue birdy with keep flying for some years to come.