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Kittens, Fox News, Mariah Carey - I lived in Donald Trump's Twitter feed for a day. Here's what I saw

Liam Mannix

Donald J Trump, President-elect of the United States of America, follows 42 people on Twitter.

It was 43, briefly, on Monday, after he followed and then unfollowed - after media attention - @EmrgencyKittens. "Critiquing the cutest cats online!".

In the last 10 days he has used Twitter to denounce, variously, the US's treatment of Israel, the UN, and the F-35 stealth jetfighter.

All the while he's been seeing a social feed filled with tweets from his selected 42 (sometimes 43). They have VIP access to arguably the soon-to-be most powerful set of eyeballs in the world.

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I built a list of the accounts Trump follows and watched it for a day, reconstructing what the President-elect sees. You can do the same here.

(The Donald won't see exactly what you see because he's in a different time-zone - but you can wind the feed back 16 hours by scrolling down).

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Here's what we – the President-elect and I – saw:

Morning:

Piers Morgan trolls his Twitter trolls. Piers, now a columnist for the Daily Mail, makes quite a habit of this. Actually, a large chunk of the Donald's feed is made up of Piers trolling his own followers.

Roma Downey's Ben-Hur retweets. Ms Downey is, variously, Exec Producer of The Bible, Answered Prayers, A. D. ,The Dovekeepers ,Son of God, Woodlawn, Little Boy and Ben Hur / Star of TBAA. See below for more on just who she is.

This excellent GIF may have reminded the Donald of his own, equally excellent, Christmas wishes tweeted to his 18.4 million followers a few days prior.

Fox Nation tweets about political correctness. Donald Trump hates political correctness...

And later, from Fox:

The great man himself appears, in this Instagram uploaded by Donald Trump Jr from a New Year's party in Florida.

Midday

How better for the President-elect to start lunch than with an inspirational and grammatically-bizarre quote from Ms Downey?

 

Another year .... Lot's of new dreams . #2017

A photo posted by Roma Downey🦋 (@romadowney) on

Former Fox News host Greta Van Susteren is going vegan for a competition. How fun! She retweeted some advice she received on pasta.

Also this

And to round out the lunch hour, here's a kitten.

Afternoon

When you're the President-elect of the USA, and you tend to tweet a lot, your feed can get pretty meta - like reading tweets about your tweeting, while you ponder what to tweet.

In case DJT hadn't caught up on the news, former James Packer squeeze Mariah Carey stunk it up on NYE.

Let us hope the White House's catering is up to the standards of the now-infamous Trump Grill, recently anointed "the worst restaurant in America".

Thanks for the retweet, Greta.

Who are these people anyway?

DJT follows an eclectic mix of tweeters - some powerful media personalities, some household names, and some people who I had never heard of (and kittens). Here's a rundown:

  • @Reince - Reince Priebus, the Donald's chief of staff
  • @RealRomaDowney - Roma calls herself Exec Producer of the Bible, but of course the Good Book did not have an executive producer. She means the faith-focused TV series. She starred as Mother Mary, and has acted in and produced a slew of other faith-based movies and TV shows.
  • @KatrinaCampins - Katrina Campins, a self-described real estate mogul with a topless photo on the internet. She represented Trump's successful election campaign as a surrogate. On Twitter she lists her location as "Peace Within".
  • @VinceMcMahon - Vince McMahon is the chairman and CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment. His Twitter bio says he "has made WWE into the global phenomenon it is today".
  • @greta - Greta Van Susteren was a Fox News host until she recently quit. She achieved fame as a legal expert opining on television during the OJ Simpson trial.
  • @EmrgencyKittens - Emergency Kittens, "Critiquing the cutest cats online!"

And now, the President-Elect and I are off to bed