This Python script scrapes Twitter to find popular tweets using the hashtag Hero.
Each week I scrape 10,000 tweets and then apply a formula that weighs the retweet count at 40% and the like count at 60% and adds them in a combined score. Although many formulas could be used to ascertain the popularity of a tweet, I chose this simple formula as I felt it demonstrates that other both agree with the content and value it enought to replicate it on their own feed.
I used snscrape to do the scraping from Twitter since it allows me to go back and look at historical tweets and doesn't require an API.
I only scrape English language tweets because I initially found it was difficult for me to understand the content of tweets that were in other languages and determine who the 'hero' in the tweet was.
I take a sample of 10,000 tweets so that my script runs in a short amount of time, but I still have a large enough sample to gather tweets that are popular in various communities.
This is a simple exercise, but it is interesting to see the variety of results. From the everyday person (or thing!) to someone with celebrity status, heroes are found all around us for acts and qualities both large and small. It reflects the array of values found in our world.
Created by Kristin Akervall, 2022
Oct 7 – German shepherd from the UK named Finn, who saved “Dave” and was rewarded with a steak https://twitter.com/K9Finn/status/1577738525893705728
Oct 14 – It’s Finn again! https://twitter.com/K9Finn/status/1579026690818248704
Oct 21 – A Japanese band called INI at the 1Chance festival (has a song called ‘Hero’) https://twitter.com/official__INI/status/1581978340185063426
Oct 28 – Vending machine inside a video game https://twitter.com/PG_primegames/status/1584148727845244928
Nov 4 - Constable Ranvir Singh, who saved a passenger from falling in front of a train at the Pipariya railway station https://twitter.com/RPF_INDIA/status/1587727153038123009
Nov 11 – Kim Go Eun, Korean actress https://twitter.com/soompi/status/1590749979874033664
Nov 18 – Aalim Hakim, celebrity hairdresser in Mumbai https://twitter.com/AalimHakim/status/1591303737787973634
Nov 25 – Richard M. Fierro, army veteran who disarmed the Club Q gunman https://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrote/status/1594860433332215809
Dec 2 – Christian Pulisic, US football player who collided with Iranian goalie, but scored a goal in FIFA World Cup https://twitter.com/UncleChaps/status/1597676892928475137
Dec 9 – Metro Boomin, record producer and DJ https://twitter.com/MetroBoomin/status/1599886409888071680
Dec 16 – a spammy looking online game https://twitter.com/taskonxyz/status/1602587058396364800
Dec 23 – INI again with their ‘Hero’ song https://twitter.com/official__INI/status/1605246659553796096
Dec 30 – Florida Corporal Ray Hamilton, who was killed while responding to a domestic violence suspect https://twitter.com/protectingblue/status/1606838156418076673
Jan 7 - Iranian millitary leader General Soleimani https://twitter.com/fa_abv/status/1608538663234990081