For the last three days, The Guardian app has been running the headline "Lady GaGa reaches 20million Twitter Followers" under their Culture section.
While that is mesmeric milestone, and one that will surely have Justin Bieber slapping his thigh in rage (he's only got 18.1 million), it just made me think of all the level of timeline skitter in she has to trawl through (as I'm sure she does it herself), not to mention the constant badgering she/her people invariably receive from advertisers trying to get her to plug stuff. Hello to you, Jordan.
@MissKatiePrice was recently caught advertising Snickers to her 1,593,053 followers. Her followers, who get to also read stuff like her latest tweet " time for bed yawn I'm excited for my swimwear press call tomorrow" *makes mental note to avoid WENN picture desk for the rest of the day*
At this point, you may be thinking one of four things 1) Can't believe Jordan has that many followers; 2) But Jordan doesn't nearly have enough money as GaGa, she needs the extra earnings; 3) I bet Lady GaGa has an team of 15 manning her Twitter account alone; 4) nnnnNNARGH, not another Jordan story?!
I agree with all of the above, however - regarding point 1) - what's Rio Ferdinand's excuse? He too advertised Snickers on Twitter, and he earns in the region of €120,000 a week. Or to put it another way, that's approximately €533,000k a month. Which is €6,500,000 a year. Not sure how much how much the tax man pockets, but even if he took home half of that, it's still a fair wedge. And it's his wedge and therefore none of our business. He works very hard kicking balls about.
Back to the GaGa. Since overtaking Britney Spears as the most-followed person on the website in August 2010, she's has held onto the top spot. Gaga is well ahead of her fellow chart toppers Katy Perry, who has 15.5 million followers, as well as Shakira and Rihanna, who both have more than 14.5 million. 'Cause they both have really important stuff to say.
As well as her large following on twitter, Gaga has eight million fans on Facebook and more than 800,000 'circles' on Google+.