Justin Bieber’s Newly Boosted Twitter Power Tested By Jimmy Fallon [Video]
Justin Bieber’s recent #40millionstrong Twitter crowning was hilariously put through its paces by Jimmy Fallon on Thursday, in an experiment to see just how far a retweet from the social media king could go.
Tweets posted by the 19-year-old are retweeted in their thousands. Great news if you’re Carly Rae-Jepsen, an Organ Bank in Ontario, or the Pencils of Promise and Make-A-Wish-Foundation charities, all of whom have been or are supported by the singer.
Not so great if you’re Olivia Wilde, Lily Allen, Drake Bell (although he brings it on himself), or TMZ on April Fools’ Day.
But we’re getting off-track.
Setting up the joke to the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon audience, the 38-year-old host explained that even one of Bieber’s, shall we say, ‘blander’ tweets could routinely expect to be retweeted almost 75, ooo times.
After introducing one of the show’s writers, Arthur Meyer, Fallon revealed he’d tasked the scribe with copying just one of Bieber’s Twitter messages on his own Twitter account every day for a week, to later compare the number of retweets the singer and Meyer received.
Meyer duly copied one of Bieber’s tweets every day, kicking off on June 10 and — from a quick gander at his timeline — he still is.
Notably, Fallon gave Meyer a head start on Late Night’s official Twitter account, by posting:
Our writer Arthur continues his adventures in @JustinBieber retweets: http://t.co/07RmLQy4Yu
— Late Night (@LateNightJimmy) June 12, 2013
On the show, Fallon asked Meyer about the experiment’s progress. The writer revealed his first three days of Bieber-copied tweets — “Time for a work out,” “Happy” and “Live life full” — had produced pitiful, single digit numbers.
But, lo, four days into the task, the teen star heard about what Meyer was up to, and a little before the program aired he retweeted Meyer’s June 13 tweet.
Following a single retweet of Meyer’s “we work hard” post by the Canadian star, the writer’s stats shot up to 4,085. Those figures are now much higher.
we work hard
— Arthur Meyer (@arthurmeyer13) June 13, 2013
On Bieber’s own timeline, his original tweet of the same message was retweeted 112,873 times. Again, the figure is now probably higher.
we work hard
— Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) June 6, 2013
Post-Thursday and after his appearance on Fallon, Meyer’s life on Twitter has now irrevocably changed. ‘Beliebers’ even retweeted his pre-Thursday posts.
At the time of posting, Meyer’s “we work hard” tweet has now been retweeted 13,148 times. And Friday’s new tweet “Frog Lawn Mower” is over 12,000 already.
The Bieber Effect, on Twitter at least, is indeed something to be reckoned with.
Things got real during last night’s Bieber retweets when @JustinBieber found out about them right before the show! http://t.co/NfXoiw3mKy
— Late Night (@LateNightJimmy) June 14, 2013