Debates break the record in most tweeted event

Check out a few of the more memorable #Debates tweets of the evening

In case you missed the debates last night, they were a big, hot mess.  Romney went all Kanye on Obama and around the fifth time moderator Jim Lehrer tried to rein things in, he gave up and went back to counting out his pills for the next week.  If you were watching the debates on MSNBC, Chris Matthews spent half the night screaming, “WHERE WAS OBAMA?!?!” and then I’m pretty sure he went home and made himself some cyanide spaghetti.  If you were watching the debates on Fox News, I’m sure Sean Hannity ran a victory lap and dumped Gatorade on Bill O’Reilly.

Naturally, the social media world lit up with tweets and posts.  I think most of them were from angry Obama supporters who were doing that thing where you have an argument with someone, and then you think of all the things you should’ve said later on, so you carry on the argument in your car by yourself like a crazy person. 

The debate was actually the most heavily tweeted event in U.S. political history, topping the RNC and the DNC with 10.3 million tweets in 90 minutes.  Some of the most tweeted about topics included Obamacare, Medicare, Jim Lehrer’s desperate attempts to get the Romney train under control, and—of course—Big Bird.  Big Bird generated 17,000 tweets per minute.

Interestingly, on Facebook, Romney was the most frequently mentioned debate topic with 11% more mentions than Obama.  Other heavily mentioned debate topics included jobs, taxes, Obamacare, insurance, and—of course—Big Bird.  (If you’re not getting the Big Bird references, they refer to Romney’s plan to cut the PBS subsidy to help stabilize the budget.  Because I’ve been saying for years, if you just cut Sesame Street’s funding, you could close the deficit and spray fire hydrants of money into the streets.)

Here are some of the more memorable tweets of the evening: 

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