What Were the Most Retweeted Tweets of 2010?

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The winner received Twitter’s first-ever Golden Tweet award. But who won and for what message of no more than 140 characters?

Stephen Colbert is the proud recipient of the most retweeted Tweet of 2010 for his June missive about the Gulf oil spill: “In honor of oil-soaked birds, ‘tweets’ are now ‘gurgles.'” Twitter wouldn’t reveal how many re-tweets Colbert got but co-founder Biz Stone went on Colbert’s show to present him with the award. “I have harpooned the fail whale!” Colbert gleefully announced.

(See TIME’s top 10 Tweets of 2010.)

The majority of the other entries went to musicians. Runner-up was Drake for this September tweet: “We always ignore the ones who adore us, and adore the ones who ignore us.” Lil Wayne didn’t just have a prison release to celebrate in November but third place on the list for the ever so eloquent, “Aaaaaaahhhhhhmmmmm baaaaakkkkkkkkkk!” And at the other end of the scale, on so many levels, Justin Bieber came fourth for July’s attempt at dipping into a foreign language with, “Te quiero mucho mi amor.” (young girls around the world fainted in unison.)

Incredibly, Bieber is mentioned in two other top 10 entries: Joe Jonas (No. 6) simply said, “I cry because I love Justin Bieber!!!” and Rihanna (No. 9) stated, “Justin Bieber just flashed me his abs in the middle of a restaurant! Wow! He actually had a lil 6 pack! Sexy, lol!”

(See pictures of Justin Bieber.)

The ubiquitous Kanye West (“I’m sorry Taylor”) and Lady Gaga (“I’m beautiful in my way, ’cause God makes no mistakes. I’m on the right track, baby. I was Born This Way.”) were eighth and seventh respectively. And there was even some room for humor in the form of No. 10’s, “Don’t focus on the one guy who hates you. You don’t go to the park and set your picnic down next to the only pile of dog s___,” by @s___mydadsays and @alqaeda at No. 5 for, “Just noticed Twitter keeps prompting me to “Add a location to your tweets”. Not falling for that one.” Perhaps not alqaeda. But many others clearly did. (via Twitter)