I Worked On This Story For A Year — Parody tweet applying Sexton format to Kurt Eichenwald's tentacle porn tweet

I Worked On This Story For A Year

2017catchphraseclassic

Published July 30, 2026

I Worked On This Story For A Year is a July 2017 Twitter catchphrase from journalist Jared Yates Sexton, who lamented that Donald Trump Jr. tweeted out the emails Sexton had been chasing as a Russia story. Users quickly turned the wording into a mock-anguished reply template for any low-stakes tweet.

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Overview

I Worked On This Story For A Year is a Twitter catchphrase built around a distressed, ellipsis-heavy tweet from independent journalist Jared Yates Sexton, posted after Donald Trump Jr. self-published the emails at the center of a Russia meeting story Sexton had been chasing1. The original wording, "I…worked on this story for a year…and…he just…he tweeted it out," was quickly lifted as a fill-in-the-blank reply template2.

The joke works because the phrasing sounds genuinely wounded, so pasting it under trivial tweets, like a fast-food take or a cereal opinion, turns any minor post into a career-ending scoop3. The halting ellipses are load-bearing; imitators tend to keep the same broken cadence rather than clean it up2.

Origin & Background

Platform
Twitter
Creator
Jared Yates Sexton
Date
2017

On July 11th, 2017, Sexton, who has been published in the New York Times, Politico and The New Republic, tweeted a run of reactions after Trump Jr. posted his Russia-meeting email chain directly to Twitter1. Alongside calling it "the dumbest and biggest crime in the history of American politics," Sexton wrote lines including "I chased this story for a year and he just…tweeted it out" and "Like. I spent hours and days and weeks and months. And his son just, hit tweet"1.

The phrasing that stuck with copycats, "I…worked on this story for a year…and…he just…he tweeted it out," pulled more than 39,000 retweets and 125,000 likes within roughly two days3.

How It Spread

New York Magazine's Intelligencer flagged the format as a fully formed meme within about 24 hours, headlining that Sexton had "worked on this story for a year" and Trump Jr. had tweeted it out2. The piece framed the joke around the letter K, for "Kremlin" and "kidding," and included user riffs such as "I worked on this story for 15 minutes. Please tweet it out"2.

The first known spin-off arrived the same day from @amylopan, who quoted Sexton under a Larry King tweet about liking Honey Nut Cheerios more the more he ate them, and cleared over 1,000 likes in two days4. On July 12th, @maybetomhanks reused the line under a Newt Gingrich tweet praising a 250-calorie McDonald's grilled chicken McWrap, pulling more than 6,000 retweets and 36,000 likes in 24 hours4.

Steemit coverage noted the odd side effect for Sexton himself, who had a book in progress at the time and suddenly saw his year of reporting overshadowed by a meme built from his own tweet5.

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How to Use This Meme

The typical use is as a quote-tweet or reply to a low-stakes post, framed as if the replier had been secretly reporting the same trivial fact for months. People commonly keep Sexton's ellipsis pattern intact and swap the timeframe, for example "I…worked on this story for 15 minutes…and…he just…he tweeted it out"2.

Frequently Asked Questions