News You Can't Use: Justin Faker!

Twitter is a miracle of this modern age. You've got celebrities and politicians who apparently think it's facebook, providing endless banal life updates (I drank a soda!) and sometimes destroying themselves with mildly amusing meltdowns that unsuccessfully challenge the prevailing orthodoxy. You've got shills, endlessly pushing their lame goods and services (Not like I'd know about that. In unrelated news The Foolchild Invention, probably the best novel ever written, is currently available at Amazon.com). You've got single issue voters eager to endlessly discuss that special one issue. You've got teens and their extremely important teen problems because that's the most meaningful and valuable time in the human life span by a wide margin. You've got "joke" accounts, with names like Dave Chickensoup and Manda CrimesAgainstHumanda making wacky quips that even mainstream television would reject. And, of course, fakes.

Yes, phonies. It's a tough pill. I assumed that dozens of swimsuit-clad ladies, many in various states of what zoologists calls "presenting," wanted to hear my third-rate stand-up act played out over a series of 140 character posts. The sad, bitter truth is it turns out probably at least some of these bathing beauties are not actual people as we know them. Still, I can take some solace in knowing it also happens to Justin Bieber. Yes, you read that correctly. The horror, the horror...

The Canadian teenager was crowned the King of Twitter earlier this year when he overtook Lady Gaga's follower count. But it would appear the award was bogus as the study reveals Gaga has in fact got more real followers. Justin, 19, leads the top ten Twitter accounts for fake fans with around 45 per cent of his following believed to be completely phony.

Noooooo!!!!! Now who will rule over us? Next you'll be telling me that so-called "fake fans" are also having an impact on, say, presidential elections. I refuse to Bieleib it. 

I'll spend a few hundred bucks, get a fake army and then conquer the world. Am I doing it right?

Fake followers are determined as those who follow less than 50 and have less than one follower, have never tweeted or use Twitter to promote spam and use words including 'diet', 'make money' and 'work from home'.

At least this is logical. No real person, at least in America, has any interest in working or dieting. #DevastatingTruths 

But the Twitter news is the latest blow for Justin who has endured a tough few months. He was dumped by girlfriend Selena Gomez at the start of the year and was booed on a recent trip to London after arriving two hours late on stage.

You're not Axl Rose, kid. Try to be more punctual in the future. This write-up will go into your HR file, along with a formal reprimand for having fake followers. 

 Original article which is ironically riddled with annoying ads for useless garbage.

Aaron Zehner has many real twitter followers, all of whom are extremely intelligent and attractive. His first novel The Foolchild Invention is available in e-book format at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.