Why is #tcot a thing?

July 27, 2012 7:35 AM

What is #tcot? I understand that it stands for Top Conservative On Twitter but what does that mean and why do people use it? What is the history and why did it start? Does it get compiled somewhere or something? Thanks
posted by Uncle to Society & Culture (7 answers total)

Best answer: Okay, so I'd not seen the tcot hastag before now (not a big Twitter user), but a quick Google revealed this article, which may be of some use to you.
posted by Defying Gravity at 7:56 AM on July 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

*hashtag
posted by Defying Gravity at 7:58 AM on July 27, 2012

Mostly I think it's very odd that conservatives self identify in a hierarchy, specifically, with themselves on "top". I'm hard pressed to find a similar, hierarchical epithet used elsewhere in political speech.

According to google, #tcot appeared sometime around nov-dec of 2008.

That said, the hash tag appears to be aggregated at topconservativesontwitter.com
posted by Freen at 8:00 AM on July 27, 2012

hashtags.org/tcot may have more information for you as well.
posted by Freen at 8:03 AM on July 27, 2012

And let's not forget the ten zillion people who use #tcot ironically to mock the various Republicans that use it.
posted by zvs at 8:06 AM on July 27, 2012 [4 favorites]

Looks like it is actually "Top Conservatives On Twitter" (plural) which to me makes a little more sense than "Top Conservative on Twitter" (singular), which would make me wonder why one particular person was calling him/herself the one and only top conservative.
posted by flug at 10:34 AM on July 27, 2012

It's basically a filter, so such-inclined people can search the tag and dive into a stream of groupthink. Its popularity, however, is sustained by non-"conservatives" using the tag to troll that stream. It's also extremely useful if your Twitter client allows global filters to remove any tweet with that tag.
posted by Jimbob at 8:02 PM on July 27, 2012