Now that ostensible singer and target Muscle Milk demographic Justin Bieber has completed both his 2015 Cryapalooza tour of regret and the publicist-ordered “I can laugh at myself” ritual of debasement, it’s time to take stock of the public’s feelings about the young Canadian. In perhaps the least surprising news since we confirmed the rising of the sun this morning, Deadline reports that people really enjoy making fun of Justin Bieber on Twitter.
The Nielson Twitter TV rankings, which track how many users saw a post immediately before, during, or after a broadcast, list both The Comedy Central Roast Of Justin Bieber and its pre-show in the top 10 for the week, with the former taking the top spot. There were nearly 1.3 million tweets sent during the actual roast, reaching an audience of 7.4 million people who were probably also lazily playing Clash Of Clans at the same time. The huge numbers may be in part the result of Comedy Central’s deal with new social media app WhipClip that made it easy to share clips from the roast on Twitter, although new app Periscope also likely played a role. Soon, Twitter users will be able to bypass watching the show altogether, and just post images and clips along with amusing hashtags directly online. Scientists are referring to this exciting future as “Instagram.”