Woman finds her long-lost best friend online within 12 hours, thanks to Twitter

The internet is wonderful for many things: providing answers to our burning questions, the endless entertainment, and perhaps chief among them - for bringing people together.

On Saturday (Nov 24), yet another a heartwarming story exemplifying the powers of social media emerged, and it started when a young American woman named Brianna tweeted for help in searching for her best friend she made on a cruise 12 years ago.

The Mississippi resident wrote: "Hey Twitter, I met this girl on a dinner cruise in Hawaii in 2006.

"We were basically best friends for that night so I need y’all to help me find my best friend cause I miss her and I need to see how she’s doing now. Please retweet this so we can be reunited."  

Her tweet was accompanied by a photo which showed herself with another young girl. 

Surprised by the huge response, Brianna joked six hours later: "Umm, this was at nine retweets when I fell asleep. So I’m looking for a husband as well so y’all can try to find him too while y’all search for girly."

Her first tweet has been shared more than 86,000 times as of writing, and just five hours after she posted the second tweet, the girl in question was found.

[embed]https://twitter.com/briannacry/status/1066257032473399297[/embed]

A user by the handle @heii replied with a photo of herself holding a family photo of the cruise vacation. She wrote: "Heard you were looking for me~"

[embed]https://twitter.com/briannacry/status/1066430514184114176[/embed]

She followed it up with another tweet:

"Bruhhh it’s been literal years since I was last on Twitter and the first thing I see is a search party for my ass."

[embed]https://twitter.com/heii_tree/status/1066430597759782912[/embed]

And Twitter blew up for a second time, as many couldn't believe the odds.

[embed]https://twitter.com/AndVantas/status/1066492623236489216[/embed]

[embed]https://twitter.com/Marie12192009/status/1066433926413971456[/embed]

[embed]https://twitter.com/AmirAbbasTuri/status/1066438832676057088[/embed]

The pair appear to have agreed to catch up, but it may not be in the flesh, as tweets online reveal that they live across the country from each other, and @heii, identified as Heidi, has college in the way.

She tweeted: "To everyone who's saying Brianna and I should meet up: I'm going to community college on financial aid. I'm not going anywhere anytime soon."

[embed]https://twitter.com/heii_tree/status/1066483615545024513[/embed]

The last we saw, users even offered to set up a GoFundMe page to raise funds so that the meet-up could materialise.

[embed]https://twitter.com/onebadmamaijama/status/1066489112281210880[/embed]

ALSO READ: Hong Kong actor Anthony Wong reunites with half-brothers he never knew existed: BBC

More surprising than the fact that the pair managed to be reunited, was the speed at which it happened. All in all, it took just 11 hours and 18 minutes (yes, someone kept count) for this story to come to a happy and uplifting end.

And of course, the most praise was reserved for Twitter and its users.

[embed]https://twitter.com/DJPRINCEDC/status/1066464719907753984[/embed]

[embed]https://twitter.com/lasrider11/status/1066435750965727233[/embed]

[embed]https://twitter.com/Phil_Lewis_/status/1066458634710908928[/embed]

[embed]https://twitter.com/mrmedina/status/1066446499054157824[/embed]

As to whether Brianna will eventually land herself a husband through her tweet, we'll be keeping our eyes peeled.

ALSO READ: Girl missing for 24 years reunited with parents, siblings

candicec@sph.com.sg