Top Twits: The Ten Most Prolific Tweeters
12th August, 2012 | Posted by: Mark
#10: Cristiano Ronaldo @Cristiano – 12,171,239 followers
Ronaldo’s Twitter feed embodies the safe, after-match commentary we’ve come to expect, beloved of players across divisions and continents alike. In an age where one stray comment can sink the online reputation of anyone with anything to lose, Ronaldo knowingly traverses the rocky landscape with media savvy. His reverent audience, agog with expectation, are treated into insights such as:
“Enjoying a great fishing afternoon”
“I’m very proud to continue being part of the Toyota family. It’s always great the way that they receive me.”
“I’m proud being named as the top player of the http://Goal.com 50. Thank you”
It should be needless to say that with a son as well-behaved as Ronaldo, the Toyota family is probably tickled pink to have Ronaldo on-board.
#9: Ellen DeGeneres @TheEllenShow – 12,759,638 followers
Ellen DeGeneres cut her teeth on her mid-to-late nineties, self-titled comedy show ‘Ellen’, and the laughs have been coming thick and fast ever since. If you don’t know who she is, just read the mandatory Wikipedia article and then utter endlessly to yourself ‘oh yeah, her!’
But what is her ‘flavor’ ? If you’re one of the handful of people not gleefully subscribed to her feed, here’s a taste:
“Why did the banker quit his job? He lost interest. #ClassicJokeMonday”
(scroll through another 30 tweets on #ClassicJokeMonday)
(no actually, nearly all of it’s #ClassicJokeMonday)
“When does a clock go back four seconds? When it’s still hungry. #ClassicJokeMonday”
“What do you call a woman who stands between two goal posts? Annette. #ClassicJokeMonday”
If you like jokes your Dad would tell, but told by a woman, Ellen’s your man. I remember why I was out all of the time for most of the late nineties now..
#8: Oprah Winfrey @Oprah – 13,093,083 followers
Oprah Winfrey needs no introduction, and her Twitter feed strapline accordingly entreats you to “Live Your Best Life” in a familiarly cloying patticake of self-help garb. On Oprah’s feed, #ClassicJokeMonday gives right of way to the soul train of #SuperSoulSunday:
“Not that spiritually evolved but admire people use the thorns to go to God. “you must die to reborn”#SuperSoulSunday”
Words are difficult, and although she accidentally a few, Oprah’s ineffable spirituality shines through the void, eschewing both rationality and comprehension alike, as her rays of wisdom implore us to be the better us, reaching for the stars like the eagle reaches for its flag… Oprah is, of course, patriotic to a fault when it comes to that ever-present torch of Hope:
“Women’s Eight… So Powerful!!We salute you #TeamUSA !!!”
Perhaps I am hasty in denouncing Oprah’s tendency to issue empty proclamations of unfounded positivity, she is if nothing else, also a practical lady:
“Yep and just saw some guy with A bandana on running in this heat. Kinda cra-cra !”
Snap your fingers and go ‘oh no she din’t’ all you want, she just went there, girlfriend.
#7: Justin Timberlake @jtimberlake – 13,104,880 followers
The Official Justin Timberlake feed is a veritable trip to Timberland, a place I have always dearly held to be much like Wonka’s Chocolate Factory; a sugary-sweet, self-referential other-world, secreting at it’s centre a large lake of brown stuff.
In Timberland, damn near every tweet is a re-tweet, in deserved praise of the illustrious leader and his exalted life, #ThatJTLife:
“@jtimberlake once told a girl to cry him a river and BOOM. The Mississippi was born. #ThatJTLife”
I apologise for failing to warn you about this detonation, but lots of things go ‘BOOM’ nowadays and I thought we’d all be well-versed in the necessary health and safety procedures by now.
JT isn’t just explosive, he also ignores the fundamental laws of thermodynamics:
“@MistyZachary: @jtimberlake can do the moonwalk on the sun” #ThatJTLife”
It would be remiss of me to ignore JT’s cerebral side, I wouldn’t mess with him at Connect Four bro:
“@jtimberlake JT once won a game of connect 4 in 3 moves #truestory”
Whilst this is seemingly not part of the aspirational lifestyle encapsulated by #ThatJTLife, it is for this single fact that he deserves to be more widely recognised.
#6: YouTube @YouTube – 14,703,800 followers
Following YouTube’s feed is a bit like following ‘@air’, and ‘@water’, and ‘@food’ and ‘@shelter’. The contribution to our online lives of YouTube cannot be overstated, and whilst their feed very much has a pulse, the mind inevitably wanders back to the question of “who’s writing this anyway?”
“Tony Hawk and his friends from @RideChannel have a few surprises for their fans. http://goo.gl/iNZ1B”
Ok.
“Violins, ghosts and heavy metal. You rock! MT @LindseyStirling: Check out my new video. My favorite cover yet:) http://youtu.be/TCL94-MsxYc”
Ok, so there’s a personal pronoun – you are a someone apparently..
“LIVE NOW: @TheTemperTrap is taking the stage in our New York office, people. Watch! http://goo.gl/S2nS9”
And you’re excited!! I was afraid I might just be wading through the calculated press releases of a marketing department, but you’re .. you!
#5: Kim Kardashian @KimKardashian – 15,675,839 followers
Firstly, a question: Is her surname a version of her surname with a typo, that just somehow went viral and nobody bothered to correct it?
I should, however, set aside my syllabically-induced shudders of terror. Why the hate anyway? In what’s apparently-not-a-retweet, Kim opines in a manner worthy of Oprah:
“Happiness is a choice…join team happy and get off team hater! Who even has all that time to hate!?!”
She has a point. I could learn from this feed.
“Trust yourself http://bit.ly/QyqtRa”
Sage.
“Love you @brittgastineau http://instagr.am/p/OAbdZQuS9y/”
Well, naturally. But the better me or the actual me? It seems Oprah doesn’t hold the monopoly on pop-psych pronouncements, and Kim’s feed leaves the better me feeling warmer and fuzzier than the actual me, which is now craving the minty fresh blast of a self-administered shotgun mouthwash.
#4: Taylor Swift @taylorswift13 – 17,112,669 followers
Buoyed by the generous doses of self-help spoon fed me so far, the better me wondered if it could possibly feel anymore tranquil. Then I chanced upon the flower bed of Taylor Swift’s Twitter feed. Dreaming, I fell asleep amongst the flowers..
“”Ever see those commercials where it’d be all ‘Taste the rainbow’ as the sky rained Skittles & wish so bad you were there?”- @taylorswift13”
Actually, much as I’d hope to be wearing the correct Personal Protective Equipment should I be in the vicinity of JT next time he goes ‘BOOM’, I would also hesitate to endorse this desire of Taylor’s, at least not without a hard hat. Skittles falling from the sky would surely have a dangerously high terminal velocity, and their crispy shells trouble me.
“Evidently, it was ‘face paint Wednesday’ last night. @ashavignone drew a unicorn on @ClaireWinter’s face. Impressed. pic.twitter.com/Ve2efUta”
On Twitter, every day is a something day! #ClassicJokeMonday, #SoulTrainSunday – stand aside for ‘face paint Wednesday’. Betwixt and ‘tween the colourful spectacle of a Skittles shower, and unicorns, Taylor highlights the uneasy tension of living in a reality devoid of these essentials, and instead burdened with the need to exchange tokens of currency in return for goods and services:
“Went to get coffee today-opened my change purse. Sea shells fell out. Barista goes “Sorry, we only take cash or credit.” So there’s that.”
#3: Barack Obama @BarackObama – 18,269,710 followers
At last, Tweets You Can Believe In. It’s not that I’m willfully cynical, but all of these celebrity feeds have left me feeling a little queasy. As if I’ve consumed a metric tonne of candy floss on an empty stomach. I am in need of spiritual nourishment, and Oprah can’t help me.
“Share what the President’s plan to extend middle-class tax cuts means to you using the hashtag #2200dollars.”
Absolutely. This is Government Two-point-Oh in the making. I think $2200 is the approximate cost of staging a Skittle shower in a small localised area of a city somewhere, and having a unicorn painted on my face, and also being able to actually afford that coffee after all.
It’s all so down-to-earth. Always a considerate husband, Obama faithfully re-tweets his other half’s tweets;
“”I want you all to remind folks that Barack has cut taxes for working families by $3,600.” –The First Lady in NH last week. Remind=RT.”
He’s also into sports:
“Bringing home the gold and training the next generation of American heroes—U.S.A. Gymnastics has a lot to be proud of: pic.twitter.com/mpODzBae”
I wanted something more down-to-earth when I came to his feed, and I got it in spades. Where’s Taylor again?
#2: Britney Spears @britneyspears – 19,259,021 followers
Eclipsing the President of The USA in a predictable triumph of style over substance, Britney’s feed covers all the stuff that’s rammed in our faces pretty much every day in the celebrity gutter section of most tabloids. The X Factor, USA. And, The X Factor (USA). And..
“Final day of boot camp for @TheXFactorUSA… gotta make some tough decisions today. Wish me luck!”
Rooting in this feed.
“Simon treated us to some southern food today. Now I need to get him some mushy peas! http://viddy.it/O1RHdb”
Not sure what South she is referring to, but it’s hard to imagine Britney ingesting a slithering eel or two without it at least going viral on Youtube.
“Simon needs to stop stealing my scooter! RT @TheXFactorUSA http://twitvid.com/PPFQ1 We caught a video of how @SimonCowell got to work today!”
It’s all about Simon apparently, he is such a tease..
#1: Lady GaGa @ladygaga – 28,030,142 followers
Michella Obama may just have to content herself with being the First Lady of the US Presidency, for we all know the real First Lady of The USA to be the crotch-thrusting gyno-terrorist Lady Gaga. And it’s war:
“Don’t worry I’ve been txting Wintour all morning trying to get that cover queens. next im sending bagels to VOGUE (complex carbohydrate war)”
Complex carbohydrate war. Also, War on Formatting:
“make sure when writing about my new album/project ARTPOP that you CAPITALIZE the title, *its all in the details* good morning twitter!”
Befittingly, she out-does both Oprah and Kim by simultaneously referencing the Olympics and squeezing in a trite, feel-good observation:
“Woohoo! Gold for the ladies! just want to squeeze them! So much talent and beauty. Did u seem all holding hands? There’s no “I” in team.”
I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.
Footnote
All follower counts were right as of the 7th August according to wefollow.com. You don’t care about this. I don’t care about this. They would probably care massively..