‘Debat’ Trends After Rudy Giuliani Tweets, Deletes a Cryptic Comment

On the morning of October 1 2020, “Debat” was a Twitter trending topic — largely populated with memes and references to New York City’s former mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Ever on top of internet trends, a social media account for the Webster’s dictionary published a tweet noting that the word “debat” was trending:

A linked definition for “debat” read:

1: a type of literary composition popular especially in medieval times in which two or more usually allegorical characters discuss or debate some subject
— compare TENSON
2: an extended discussion, debate, or philosophical argument between two characters in a work of literature

Another popular tweet involved a “Ghouliani” meme:

Others didn’t reference Giuliani specifically:

A few of the tweets involved a screenshot of a purported tweet by Giuliani, sometimes with a timestamp of 9:14 AM on October 1 2020:

No such tweet appeared on Giuliani’s timeline later on October 1 2020, but a Google cache (archived) returned a non-working link: https://twitter.com/rudygiuliani/status/1311656157359026179. Giuliani’s timeline did feature a live, different tweet littered with typographical errors:

In that tweet, Giuliani wrote:

The candidate campaign saying maybe no more, or only one more debate, lost to Chris Wallace in the first debate. He finished well below the PRESIDENT.

He jot trapped by @realDonaldTrump into flip flopping on positions promised to Bernie Sanders and already on his website.

Although occasionally screenshots of fabricated tweets from various political figures entered circulation as a “deleted tweet,” readers attempted to archive Giuliani’s tweet at least eight times on the Wayback Machine. At least one of the archived versions led to a saved copy of the tweet.

In Google’s cache, a timestamp of 6:16 AM appeared, likely PST:

The word “debat” hit Twitter’s trending topics as one of a few error-laden tweets sent by former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani on October 1 2020. Giuliani tweeted and deleted the comment — which read only, “The debat” — on that morning.