FACT: by age 18, all women have mastered this expression in response to braving the many temper tantrums of misogynistic, domineering men. pic.twitter.com/iemLstHURi
— Anne T. Donahue (@annetdonahue) September 27, 2016
Last night, Hillary Clinton stood on a stage and basically listed her campaign platform points while her opponent rambled largely incoherently—and often verifiably falsely—alongside her, not giving her a whole lot to actually need to debate. (Don’t just take my word for how good it was for Clinton.) It really wound up being kind of boring to watch, unless you were on Twitter, where the real action was happening. With live fact-checking and infinite memes, it was officially the most-tweeted debate ever. (It was also just a huge event in terms of viewership in general.)
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Twitter hasn’t given out official numbers yet, but last night beat out the 2012 Denver debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, which clocked 10.3 million tweets during the 1.5-hour broadcast. The most-tweeted moment of this year’s first debate was when Trump claimed he had a good temperament for a president at the end of the debate, which had the live audience laughing out loud. His comments on instituting unconstitutional (partially due to their racial bias) stop-and-frisk policies registered the second-highest response on Twitter, and the absurd exchange around defeating ISIS took 3rd.
That’s all well and good, but how is one to sift through all those mountains of tweets to find the true gems of the night? We’ve done some of that work for you.
A good place to start would just be Leslie Jones’ entire timeline, because she live-tweeted the whole thing. Chrissy Teigen’s is also gold. This was another strong favorite, since Trump kept sniffling casually between statements, and now many people are saying he might be on cocaine:
— Hiro Murai (@MuraiHiro) September 27, 2016
Of course #TrumpWon. Look at his debate prep. pic.twitter.com/chFgHGjDLF
— Crutnacker (@Crutnacker) September 27, 2016
But the fun doesn’t stop there:
People criticizing Clinton’s preparedness probably also don’t realize Hermione is the only reason Harry Potter survived 7 books
— Carolyn Wilke (@Classlicity) September 27, 2016
Not like she’s been constantly told to smile more or anything:
Yes indeed who told her to do that pic.twitter.com/LKchxJCz0R
— Jason Bailey (@jasondashbailey) September 27, 2016
Turning it on was a pretty dastardly move https://t.co/NE5vBTsCfn
— Mike Hayes (@michaelhayes) September 27, 2016
she was a working mom & a primary caregiver to her child & still managed a law career AND a life of public service STFU ABOUT STAMINA DONALD
— zoe kazan (@zoeinthecities) September 27, 2016
Trump can run for president with no political experience but I need a masters and 5 years experience for an entry level job
— jimmy c hendrix jr (@jimmyhendrixjr) September 27, 2016
— Samir Mezrahi (@samir) September 27, 2016
Recap of tonight’s debate. pic.twitter.com/RiawpJbtnq
— Rashad Alaiyan (@rashadalaiyan) September 27, 2016
@KenTremendous this was supposed to be a joke, right? Not a crystal ball? #debatenight pic.twitter.com/Zhdz9QM1nD
— Jess Knackstedt (@thatgirljess) September 27, 2016
I think this advert for men on behalf of the Men Marketing Board might need a rejig. https://t.co/oGcpDf8uRs
— Simon Blackwell (@simonblackwell) September 27, 2016
Trump: “I notice the nasty commercials you do on me.” Her commercials are literally just clips of him speaking. #debate
— Amanda Deibert (@amandadeibert) September 27, 2016
— Nathan Zed 🍓🍌 (@NathanZed) September 27, 2016
“Um, Lester we’re live…..lester, LESTER” pic.twitter.com/YMw8n1rIDo
— Why Am I A Bears Fan (@FlowsAndolini) September 27, 2016
“Please”
“No, Joe the debate is on”
“Just turn to ESPN real quick. I wanna see the score”
“You have your own TV”
“It’s scary in my room.” pic.twitter.com/RAz6cv5Q7v— Ol’ QWERTY Bastard (@TheDiLLon1) September 27, 2016
And then there was the night’s most-retweeted tweet, which was an old Donald Trump tweet saying climate change is a Chinese hoax, which he denied ever saying last night:
The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2012
The Trump fans are still insisting he won, but we’ll see the real results in polling data over the next few days. Vote!
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