---
title: "Which came first, Mario or Twitter?"
description: "Mario vs Twitter: Mario came first, by 25 years — 1981 against 2006. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/super-mario-vs-twitter/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, Mario or Twitter?

**Which came first, Mario or Twitter?: Mario**

1981 — 25 years before Twitter

Mario came first, by 25 years. Mario debuted as "Jumpman" in the arcade game Donkey Kong.

## Side by side

|  | Mario | Twitter |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1981 | 2006 |
| Date | — | 2006-03-21 |
| Category | media | technology |
| What happened | Mario debuted as "Jumpman" in the arcade game Donkey Kong. | Jack Dorsey posted the first tweet. |

## Mario

Mario first appeared in Donkey Kong in 1981, credited as Jumpman, four years before Super Mario Bros. of 1985 made him a household name. He wears a cap because animating hair at that resolution was impossible, and dungarees because they made his arm movements legible against his body — the design is entirely a consequence of an 16×16 pixel sprite.

## Twitter

The first tweet — "just setting up my twttr" — went out on 21 March 2006, and the service opened publicly that July. The 140-character limit came from SMS: a text message allows 160 characters and 20 were reserved for the username. When the limit doubled to 280 in 2017 the SMS constraint had been irrelevant for years.

## Common questions

### Which came first, Mario or Twitter?

Mario, by 25 years — 1981 against 2006.

### When did Mario start?

1981. Mario debuted as "Jumpman" in the arcade game Donkey Kong.

### When did Twitter start?

2006. Jack Dorsey posted the first tweet.

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## Sources

- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]