• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, December 7, 2015

Although people often criticize social media for skewing our perspectives, viewed from the “40,000 foot” level it’s actually a pretty good reflection of humanity, with its bizarre juxtapositions of the tragic and comic, the trivial and the profound. Just take a look at Twitter’s year in review, which is basically a trip down cognitive dissonance lane. But the guys are dreamy!

In a year which saw the legalization of same sex marriage in the U.S., the rise of the “Black Lives Matter” movement and horrendous terrorist attacks around the world, according to Twitter the number one most retweeted tweet was (drum roll)… Harry Styles’ tweet to Zayn Malik after the latter left the British boy band One Direction, reading, “All the love as always. H,” which garnered 727,000 retweets.

Remarkably, the second and third most retweeted tweets were also from current or former members of One Direction: Zayn Malik came in second place with a tweet congratulating his former band mates on their new single, with 566,000 retweets, and third place went to Liam Payne, congratulating the band on its five year anniversary, with 496,000 tweets.

Weighty stuff, this. Fourth place went to someone named Barack Obama, who is not in a boy band, congratulating same sex marriage supporters on the Supreme Court decision with the hashtag #LoveWins, retweeted 448,000 times.

Fourth place was back to One Direction, with a shout out to One Direction fans from Louis Tomlinson, retweeted 413,000 times.

Fifth place went to King Salman, apparently the leader of a boy band called Saudi Arabia, who sent a message of greeting to his subjects on taking the throne, retweeted 368,000 times. Sixth place was back to One Direction, with Niall Horan wishing Liam Payne happy birthday, retweeted 323,000 times.

Seventh place went to Kanye West, who shared an inspirational message that kind of makes you think: “Please: Do everything you possibly can in one lifetime,” retweeted 310,000 times. Like, what do the words “everything” and “possibly” mean in this context? Am I on the right track if I’m organizing a dog parade just because?

Eighth place went to Leonard Nimoy, who posted an inspirational message that went viral after he passed away: “A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.  LLAP.” It was retweeted 277,000 times.

Ninth place went to Caitlyn Jenner, formerly Bruce, who introduced herself to the world with a tweet: “I'm so happy after such a long struggle to be living my true self. Welcome to the world Caitlyn. Can't wait for you to get to know her/me.” This syntactically challenged tweet was retweeted 260,000 times.