The First Tweet Ever Was… Wildly Underwhelming

Twitter changed the way we communicate. It helped launch revolutions, cancel celebrities, and invent the humblebrag.

But the first tweet ever? It was the equivalent of someone texting “hey.”

On March 21, 2006, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey typed this now-famous, world-changing sentence:

“just setting up my twttr”

That’s it. No caps. No punctuation. No idea what he’d just started.

To be fair, it was 2006. Twitter (originally named “twttr” to be trendy and vowel-averse) was still a side project at a podcasting company called Odeo. The idea was to create a “status update” tool using SMS messages. Think: public texts for your friends.

Revolutionary at the time. Basic by today’s standards.

Still, that seven-word shrug of a tweet went on to become internet gold. In fact, in 2021, it was sold as an NFT for $2.9 million—which proves two things:

1. History loves a good origin story,

2. And some people have way too much crypto.

Moral of the story? Even your most boring updates might be worth millions someday.(So maybe don’t delete that “test” post just yet.)