A year in tweets: We look back on the last year with data from Twitter

3/11/21 7:00PM

Yesterday, March 11th, marked exactly one year since the World Health Organization declared the COVID outbreak a "global pandemic". That same day Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson announced they'd been diagnosed with COVID, and the NBA started cancelling games. For many people it was the day the pandemic became real — and it shows in the data from social media platform Twitter.

The chart above plots the data from hedonometer.org, which has been tracking the "average happiness" score of literally billions of tweets since 2008.

Last year March 11th and 12th were among the days when twitter users were most unhappy or angry, second only to May 31st, when thousands of people turned out in protest against police brutality, after the murder of George Floyd. Those protests actually saw more sadness posted on Twitter than during the storming of the US Capitol.

The happier moments, interestingly, are fairly predictable; the big holidays usually see the most cheer, with Christmas Day usually the "happiest" day most years. Check out the full timeline from the last year if it's a slow Friday.

‍How does this work?

‍The basis for the model is the scoring of about 10,000 unique English words, which are graded on a scale from 1-9 (1 being sad, 9 being very happy). Then, a random sample of about 10% of the ~500 million messages sent on Twitter every day is collected, and an average happiness score for that day is calculated for any tweets determined to be written in English.

Jake Lahut

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The UAE’s OPEC exit will hit the group in the barrels

After just shy of 60 years in OPEC, its membership even predating its status as a nation-state, the United Arab Emirates yesterday announced its shocking departure from the oil production group, effective May 1, as the knock-on effects of the Iran war continue to play out across the Middle East and the energy landscape.

For context, the UAE produces the third-highest amount of oil in the group, per April data and OPEC’s latest set of annual statistics.

According to the cartel’s 2025 Annual Statistical Bulletin, the OPEC group was collectively exporting some 19 million barrels of crude oil a day last year, with the United Arab Emirates accounting for some 14% of that daily output.

UAExit means UAExit

The nation, whose energy minister told Reuters yesterday that the decision was taken “after a careful look at current and future policies related to level of production” and wasn’t made following discussions with any other country, made up a healthy share of the group’s total confirmed crude oil reserves, as well.

Of the 12 nations in the core group, which was founded by just five oil superpowers back in September 1960, only two (Iraq and Saudi Arabia) exported more barrels of crude oil daily, pumping out 3.36 million and 6.05 million barrels, respectively, each day to nations around the world.

For its part, the UAE said it will “continue its responsible role by gradually and thoughtfully increasing production, in line with demand and market conditions,” per the official state news agency. Clearly, the nation now wants a little more control of just how much oil it can pump around the world, with the UAE having to eat a large proportion of lost revenues due to its healthy abundance and OPEC restrictions.