Twitter has been around for seven years now, and has established itself as a multibillion dollar companion to Facebook's social networking revolution. It's also popularized the use of the hashtag, which has littered Facebook posts with such illegible nonsense so as to ignite a tiny fire of throat-punching rage in everyone who has "That Friend" always popping up on their news feed. Seriously, if you're using a hashtag on Facebook, it better be a freaking Game of Thrones reference.
#WinterIsComing
But this isn't an article about hashtags, this is an article about Twitter, and there are some things about Twitter you probably didn't know......
Above is a snapshot of the top 6 accounts followed on Twitter. Some interesting notes- the mystery person in the top spot has a ridiculous ten times as many "tweets" as the next most popular account. Also, the top two are each following over 100,000 accounts, which is suspicious because as we've noted before, Twitter followers can be bought as a commodity. Follower-hungry musicians, movie stars, and other notable figures often use automated programs to follow people who follow similar celebrities, hoping the action will be reciprocated. So when you take into account the fact that most people's social circle consists of roughly 150 people, anything in the 100k range is blatantly outrageous.
We can safely assume that three of those top 6 individuals up there follow only close personal contacts, while numbers 1,2, and 4 are in the business of scrounging up as many followers as possible through automated means. And considering #4 is following over 600 thousand people, it's safe to guess that they're the biggest attention whore around. Ready for the next picture?
Oh look! A list of the world's most unnecessary people.
Justin Bieber has more followers than the combined populations of New York City and Los Angeles. Lady Gaga has a few more followers than the entire population of California. Just look at that list! Rinanna? Taylor Swift? This is supposed to be a list of the most followed and therefore famous people on the planet, and instead reads as a list of people who don't deserve to be famous at all. This isn't just the top followers of people who suck at music, this is the worldwide top 6. Where's Lebron James? He's pretty famous, right? Yeah, Famous enough to be #67.
Rappers hang out with this punk for his fans, not his swag. Plus rappers usually have a thing for white girls.
**Editor's note: I think you know we can't publish that joke.**
The five con artists masquerading as musicians that top this list are all disgustingly untalented, and make a living rewriting their same bubblegum-pop songs every year or so. But surprisingly, that's not even the saddest aspect of the Twitter top 6. What the heck is the President of the United States doing at #4 on this list?! We may never know the "why", but we can guess at the "how": the man is following 661,843 people.
Which is a conservative estimate, since recent events suggest he's following closer to 316 million.
So of the six most "adored" celebrities in the world, five are musicians created in labs by record labels looking to rake in mountains of cash, and one is a politician created in much the same fashion (and for the same reason). Excellent. We're all just thrilled at the state of the world right now.
So how far down this list of celebrities do you have to look before finding one actually worth following? Depends on your preferences, but for us here at the Mind Grenades offices, we had to scroll all the way down to #68.
Conan's the only individual in the entire top 100 we actually like.
Neil Patrick Harris doesn't show up until #120.
-L
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