About

Timeline Cleanse is a frequently used caption for social media posts that showcase positive, cute or wholesome photographs, usually of animals, celebrities or people smiling.

Origin

On May 18th, 2010, Twitter ^[1] user @Li_sa_M tweeted the earliest known reference to the "timeline cleanse. However, in this instance, the Twitter user appears to be referencing clearing their friends list (shown below).

Three years later, Twitter user @SabiaCoruja tweeted,^[2] "Time for another timeline cleanse- its good for the soul! #Scandal #Olitz #WaitForFitz" (shown below, left).

On December 5th, 2014, Twitter user @RedSaid posted an series of images of a man with his two daughters. They captioned the tweet, "Necessary timeline cleanse, Because: beautiful. @_BlackFathers: 😍😍❤" (shown below, right). This is the earliest known usage of the "timeline cleanse" as it is most commonly used.

Spread

The following year, the trend continued to grow in popularity, posting images of various pets and celebrities. FOr example, on August 19th, 2015, Twitter user @GunstarHeroine tweeted a photo of a cat with the caption, "timeline cleanse" (shown below).

On March 25th, 2019, the point of spread of timeline cleanse occured. That day, Twitter^[3] user @crisstuh tweted a video of a baby with the caption, "rting this as a timeline cleanse goodnight." The tweet received more than 3,200 likes and 465 retweets in less than two years (shown below).

rting this as a timeline cleanse goodnight https://t.co/MZkvPxqAJD

— krista (@crisstuh) March 26, 2019

Various Examples

Timeline cleanse. pic.twitter.com/CBmVPusTuj

— 📂 (@PetsFolder) October 13, 2020

External References