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Uncategorized Friday, December 21st 2012 at 1:30 pm

Adorable: The Pope Thinks He’s Beating Justin Bieber at Twitter

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In a sign that maybe the Vatican doesn’t really understand this newfangled Twitter thing, they’ve announced that the Pope is beating Justin Bieber in the only category that counts: Retweets. If you’re wondering how that statement can be true, don’t bother, because it isn’t. Don’t worry, Pope, we’re sure you’re still beating Bieber in most giant hats. Probably.

The claim came from the Vatican’s newspaper, which said that the Pope has bested Bieber in percentage of followers that retweeted the pontiff’s first tweet versus the percentage of Bieber’s followers who retweeted one of his most popular tweets about a six-year-old fan losing her life to cancer. The Vatican says about half of the Pope’s 2.1 million followers retweeted the pontiff’s first message, but less than one percent of Bieber 31.7 million followers retweeted his tweet.

The retweet percentage statistic doesn’t mean anything. I just created two Twitter accounts that only follow each other, and retweeted a message by each from the other account. Those two accounts now have a 100% retweet percentage of every tweet they’ve ever posted. I’m beating the Pope and Justin Bieber combined. See how meaningless retweet percentage is?

Besides, the Pope’s 2.1 million followers are spread across the eight different accounts he uses for different languages, and so were the retweets. That seems like cheating considering Bieber has 31.7 million followers on one account. Also, if you’re trying to pick a fight over one of Bieber’s tweets, maybe don’t pick the one where he was honoring a six-year-old girl who died of cancer. I think that counts as cyberbullying.

While we’re talking about numbers that don’t matter, Pope, Bieber’s Klout score is 92 to your 82.

(via Yahoo! News, image via Catholic Church (England and Wales))

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  • http://twitter.com/Gauldar BOBRACHA

    He forgets he’s supposed to only lie about the things that can’t be disproved.

  • Anonymous

    Methinks “papal infallibility” is expected to trump mere logic. (At least until Pontifex gets the hang of Twitter and deletes the early posts.)

  • Anonymous

    The P-man is really up there in age, and one day will no longer using up any of the Earth’s supply of oxygen. When that happens, and until a successor is named and installed, NOBODY IN THE WORLD WILL BE INFALLIBLE!

  • http://twitter.com/rayban5016 Ray O.

    Wow! So much disrespect for the Holy Father here. I’m sure your mothers are so proud.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1745027821 Jeremy Pennini

    Have you not read geekosystem? This article is just as informatively sarcastic as the next.

  • http://geekosystem.com/ Glen Tickle

    I enjoy being described as “informatively sarcastic.”

  • Jay

    Uh, I’m not a math whiz, but half of 2.1 million is roughly 1 million, and 1% of 31.7 million is 317,000. So if those stats (which you don’t argue with) are accurate, then the Pope’s tweets are actually re-tweeted more than Bieber. Still a weird thing for the Vatican to be proud of, but not exactly a “lie”.

  • http://geekosystem.com/ Glen Tickle

    The Vatican pushed that it was a victory in the percentage of retweets, not a total, which is weird because, yes, 1 million > 317,000. But I think the fact that the 1 million was divided over 8 accounts still holds up as kind of a deflating aspect. Also, it’s Twitter, so it’s probably not worth bragging about anyway.

  • johnny

    I’m not a fan of the pope but he’s not wrong

    If a higher % of the popes folowers retweeted him than Berber he’s right.

    It’s not like the pope has 2 followers he has shit loads. Fact is more people hang on his every word that they do bieber. Like it or not, it’s a fact. Please don’t argue if you’re under 20 or hate Christianity as your argument would be biased.

  • Idlethoughts

    Why do you keep posting that line, is this some joke I’m not getting?

  • Anonymous

    Although it would be a good idea if it were possible, not everyone sits by waiting for my comments on certain articles, and therefore any time I post this comment here or at another site, somebody is reading it for the first time, and when those people possess even a modicum of a sense of humor (which apparently you don’t) these people get it and have a good laugh. And anything that demeans the cult of pedophile prelates is a good thing.