Francophonie: Like Fine Wine, Twitter Experience Gets Better With Age

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. Here is an article by Coline Bérard 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 @JocelyneRobert in 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

Anna Gueye 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.

@bravepatrie:

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

Necessepas:

J'ai été amoureuse d'Albator #jesuisvieille http://youtu.be/SpE9Yo9dmIo

I was in love with Captain Harlock http://youtu.be/SpE9Yo9dmIo

Boris:

Je me souviens avoir vu la comète de Halley #jesuisvieux

I remember seeing Halley's comet

sophiedurocher:

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. #jesuisvieille

When I was young, There was no internet for no-life anonymous people to pour down their hatred and comtempt

Dugomo:

Voler des 33 tours, c'était quand même plus héroïque que télécharger #jesuisvieux

Stealing LP records took more guts than downloading songs

Kristalynm9:

J'ai déjà imprimer un travail de Cégep sur une imprimante a ruban de Commodore 64 a @tremblay96 #jesuisvieux

I did a print job for CEGEP on a Commodore 64 printer in @tremblay96

fastclemmy:

on est tous le vieux de quelqu'un #jesuisvieux

We all are someone else's elder

Finally Lionel suggests that one of the top contributors to the meme is Global Voices own's Anna Gueye:

lionelchollet:

L'une des toutes meilleures séries #jesuisvieux #jesuisvieille, au niveau mondial, est, sans conteste, celle d’@annagueye http://is.gd/dN00B

One of the best #jesuisvieux #jesuisvieille series worldwide is wihtout a doubt @AnnaGueye's

Start the conversation

Authors, please log in »

Guidelines

  • All comments are reviewed by a moderator. Do not submit your comment more than once or it may be identified as spam.
  • Please treat others with respect. Comments containing hate speech, obscenity, and personal attacks will not be approved.