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Love doesn’t always conquer on Twitter

This striking, interactive map charts mentions of love and hate on Twitter from around the world. 

 

Fernando Alfonso III

Internet Culture

Posted on Feb 14, 2012   Updated on Jun 2, 2021, 9:26 pm CDT

While countries around the world celebrate Valentine’s Day in their own unique ways, the expression of love is universal—especially on Twitter.

A new interactive map from the communications company Imperial Leisure plots tweets based on the time and place the messages were posted, how long the tweets were, and if the tweets mention love or hate, according to the company’s website

The tweets are then turned into a beautiful tree-like graphic in real-time, with those containing the word “love” highlighted in red and those with “hate” in blue.

Of the 19 countries to chose from, the U.S. seems to have the most tweets featuring the word “hate,” while Russia and Italy have hardly any.

But a closer look at the map shows how it is not accurate in terms of highlighting Valentine’s Day-related tweets. For example, many of the U.S. tweets containing “hate” are about sports and pop culture, while those containing “love” have nothing to do with Valentine’s Day.

In the end, maybe the interactive map is simply a metaphor for just how complicated love can be.

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*First Published: Feb 14, 2012, 1:49 pm CST