Francophonie: Like Fine Wine, Twitter Experience Gets Better With Age · Global Voices
An unexpected but deliciously nostalgic hash tag, #jesuisvieux, has been trending on the French speaking social media scene. Since July 26th, twitter users have been going down memory lane, posting tweets relating their memories from youth with the hash tag #jesuisvieux ( I am old – men) or #jesuisvieille ( I am old – women). The timeline for the hashtag was filled with often humorous, sometimes sweet updates and provides a good snapshot of the evolution of information technology usage and its demographics.
It is unclear whether the article in the New York Times on July 15 entitled: “Aging Gracefully, the French Way” has anything to do with the twitter trend but aging is certainly on a lot of people's mind in the francophone world and they seemingly embrace it openly.
A few newspapers have collected and curated the best of them. 157
Here is an article by <PERSON> at L'Express.fr: “Twitter c'est pour les vieux”, (twitter is for old people in English) and Belgian newspaper Le Soir is currently posting and monitoring a live blogging session about the #Jesuisvieux hashtag on the Cover It Live platform.
Screenshot of the #Jesuistropvieux tag on Trendsmap.com
According to Hashtags.org, #jesuisvieux hash tag made up to 0.03% of tweets worldwide on July 27.
Here are a few tweets that have caught out attention:
From <PERSON> Montréal, Canada:
On ne brimait pas nos élans sexuels avec la menace des ITS mais avec la menace de l'enfer #jesuisvieille
We did not suppress our libido with the threat of STDs but with the the threat of hell #IamOld
Pierre Côté:
J'ai surfé sur le WWW en utilisant NETSCAPE #jesuisvieux
I surfed the web using Netscape
<PERSON> from Senegal and La Hague, Holland:
#jesuisvieux il y avait des 1ères classes dans le métro #jesuisvieille
There were first class seats in the metro
slim404 in Tunisia:
Le 7 nov. 1987 j'étais content. Mon père m'a dit : “tu va pas à l'école aujourd'hui, on ne sait jamais” #jesuisvieux
On Nov 7 1987, my dad told me:” You are not going to class today, who knows what can happen.
<PERSON>:
J'ai vu des ministres démissionner quand ils étaient mis en cause dans des affaires. #jesuisvieux
Ministers actually resigned when they were implicated in scandals
<PERSON>:
J'ai été amoureuse d'Albator #jesuisvieille http://youtu.be/SpE9Yo9dmIo
I was in love with Captain <PERSON> http://youtu.be/SpE9Yo9dmIo
<PERSON>:
Je me souviens avoir vu la comète de Halley #jesuisvieux
I remember seeing <PERSON>'s comet
<PERSON>:
Dans ma jeunesse, il n'y avait pas Internet pour que des anonymes qui n'ont pas de vie déversent leur haine et leur mépris. 244