# Where Were You Where Were You, often tagged #WhereWereYou, is the annual question Americans trade each September 11th anniversary to share where they were when they learned about the 2001 attacks. The practice traces back to Alan Jackson's 2001 country memorial song and resurfaced as a Twitter ritual in September 2015, when the hashtag spiked overnight. It still returns every anniversary as a sincere personal-memory thread format. ## Origin Country singer Alan Jackson released 'Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning' on November 7th, 2001, writing it in response to the September 11th attacks earlier that fall[1]. The ballad took Best Country Song at the 2002 Grammy Awards and Song of the Year honors from several country music associations, and by April 2015 it had sold roughly 368,000 digital copies in the United States[1]. The track's refrain, which literally asks listeners where they were the morning of the attacks, is what later gave the Twitter ritual its name and shape[4]. The hashtag version has no single confirmed originator; it surfaced organically on the night before the 2015 anniversary. - **Platform:** Country music (song origin) / Twitter (viral hashtag spread) - **Creator:** Alan Jackson (originating song); hashtag ritual: Unknown - **Date:** 2001 ## Overview The #WhereWereYou format is almost always played straight rather than for jokes. Participants reply with short first-person recollections of what they were doing the morning of September 11th, 2001, usually anchored to a specific place like a classroom, a commute, or an office[4]. Political offices and media accounts tend to seed the tag each year with produced video clips while ordinary users add written memories underneath[2]. The question draws its weight from Alan Jackson's country ballad 'Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning,' released weeks after the attacks and replayed heavily each anniversary[1]. Threads using the prompt are treated as serious across platforms, which is part of why it stands apart from the usual irony-coded hashtag trends on Twitter[3]. ## How to Use Typical posts answer the prompt in first person with a short memory tied to a specific location, time of day, or who the user was with on the morning of September 11th, 2001. Political accounts commonly attach a short produced video; civilian accounts usually keep it to a sentence or two. Comedy or ironic replies are rare in this tag, and users who try them tend to get pushed back on hard. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Where Were You? Where Were You is the annual #WhereWereYou Twitter prompt Americans use each September 11th to share where they were when they heard about the 2001 attacks[4]. ### Where did Where Were You come from? The phrase comes from Alan Jackson's November 2001 country song 'Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning,' released as a response to the September 11th attacks[1]. The hashtag version took off on Twitter in September 2015[4]. ### What does Where Were You mean? On the September 11th anniversary it is a prompt asking people to recall their exact location and situation at the moment they learned about the 2001 attacks, and users reply with short personal memories[2]. ### How do you use Where Were You? Reply to the prompt in first person with a short memory tied to a specific place and time on the morning of September 11th, 2001; political accounts often attach a short tribute video[4]. ### Is Where Were You still popular? The tag returns every September 11th as an anniversary ritual, with the Alan Jackson song it is named after still re-shared each year[5], though the biggest documented spike was the 2015 Twitter wave covered by NBC News[2]. ## References 1. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Were_You_(When_the_World_Stopped_Turning)]() 2. [http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/people-share-9-11-stories-wherewereyou-hashtag-n425836]() 3. [http://heavy.com/news/2015/09/top-best-where-were-you-inspirational-tweets-location-on-9-11-september-11/]() 4. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/where-were-you]() 5. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5gc6AWb_qU]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/where-were-you Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library