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- Government expenditures
Government expenditures
Social Capital's line chart drew 20.3M views on X: 114x its typical post and #1 of 41 Social Capital charts we track by views. Read Oct 10, 2026.
Has your lived experience in California gotten 3x better in the past 20 years? Because your taxes and borrowing have gone up to triple spending in that same time.
Why it spread
This post spread because it came from a big source account and drew many quotes, with 12,665 likes, 2,365 reposts, 275 quotes, 1,490 saves and 20,280,518 views, which is 11.7x the account's normal performance.
What worked
- The post pairs a blunt rhetorical question about lived experience with a simple before and after comparison of population and spending.
- The chart is a line showing per capita government spending rising over time with fluctuations, which makes the trend easy to grasp at a glance.
- The framing ties a personal question to a public budget story, which invites replies and quotes rather than passive scrolling.
What to borrow
We could use the same before and after framing with our own data by asking a direct question about a lived experience and then showing one clear line of change over time.
Careful
Do not copy the low design polish, the lack of a source line, or the low self labelling, and do not over read the quote rate, which was below average.
Written by our analysis model from the measured numbers above, not by Social Capital.
Make it yours
Your numbers, in this line chart.
Starts from the real numbers of "California Per Capita Governmental Expenditures (2004-2024)" by Social Capital. Replace every number with yours before you post. Make one like this, step by step
Free pictures carry a small "Made with ViralChart" line. That line is how other people find us.
API · Max
Use this chart via API
On the Max plan you can pull this chart's numbers with the provenance of each one, as JSON or CSV, with its redraw spec, or call it from an agent over MCP. Chart id 20fe7d44d3ac.
Approximate values. Our two readings of this chart agreed only in part (confidence 0.30 of 1), so check the original before you quote a number. The API marks it lowConfidence, and ?min_confidence=0.5 leaves it out.
| Path | Returns | Plan | |
|---|---|---|---|
| GET | /api/v1/charts/20fe7d44d3ac | Title, publisher, date, form, point count; with a Max key, the data link | Open |
| GET | /api/v1/charts/20fe7d44d3ac/data | Every point with its provenance and confidence, plus the redraw spec. Add ?format=csv for CSV | Max |
| GET | /api/v1/charts/20fe7d44d3ac/render?view=1 | The draw-only view this page uses | Open |
| POST | /mcp | Tool get_chart_data with this id, for Claude, Cursor and other agents | Max |
curl -s https://viral-chart.com/api/v1/charts/20fe7d44d3ac/data \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $VIRALCHART_KEY"claude mcp add --transport http viralchart https://viral-chart.com/mcp \
--header "Authorization: Bearer $VIRALCHART_KEY"60 requests a minute per key; over that you get 429 with Retry-After. Up to 5 keys per account, made on your account page and shown once. Without Max, the data route answers 402 with a link to the plans. The numbers describe a chart its publisher owns, and every file carries a license note.
More from Social Capital
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Other giants using a line chart
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Questions people ask
How far did Social Capital's "Government expenditures" chart travel?
20,280,518 views, 12,665 likes, 2,365 reposts and 1,490 saves on X, read Oct 10, 2026. A normal post from @chamath gets about 177.3K views.
What kind of chart is it?
A line chart. California per capita government spending increased significantly over time with fluctuations.
Can I use Social Capital's chart?
Use the format, not the picture. The chart, logo and design belong to Social Capital. ViralChart redraws the chart type with your numbers and words, and credits the original publisher.