Katy Perry (@katyperry) recently edged out Justin
Bieber as the most popular person on Twitter with 46.7 million followers. Her
bio reads: "LET THE LIGHT IN. PRISM. OUT NOW!" See who leads the pack
in a variety of categories as of November 6, according to Twitaholic.com.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
The majority
of the most-followed Twitter accounts are singers and other celebrities
But less-famous users have amassed big
followings as well
Rival
Facebook has Twitter's 44th most popular account
Horoscopes, a queen and Lord Voldemort also
have huge followings
(CNN) -- Everybody knows the
big-time accounts on Twitter belong to celebrities -- the Katy Perry and Justin
Biebers and Lady Gagas.
And those are just the
singers with more followers than President Barack Obama.
But as the newly public
social platform rolls out to investors Thursday, we're taking a look at the
surprise stars of Twitter -- the accounts you might not expect to be nestled in
the top 200 most followed, alongside the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Adele.
Some come from the ranks
of the quasi-famous, those who have parlayed a smaller share of the spotlight
into social media stardom through their activity on Twitter. Others have
backgrounds that have put them in the public eye in other ways.
And some aren't people
at all. On Twitter, you can do that.
Maybe you've never heard
of them, or maybe you have. But all are examples of the power of Twitter, when
used well, to enhance celebrity and amplify one's voice.
Here are 10 of Twitter's
most unexpected stars. Let us know your favorite noncelebrity Twitter
celebrities in the comments.
OK, this entry kind of
goes against the grain of the rest. But we couldn't figure out how One
Direction shouldn't be first.
If you're not a preteen
girl, or a preteen guy who listens to music he doesn't like to be around teen
girls, you may well not even know that One Direction exists. But it does. And
the group kind of owns Twitter.
One Direction is a band
of young lads from England. They're, by all accounts, dreamy. And they have six
of the most popular accounts on the site.
Singer Harry Styles
checks in at No. 22, with 17.4 million followers -- more, even, than the 16
million following the band's official account. The other four band members rank
29th, 35th, 38th and 53rd, each of them with more than 11 million followers of
their own.
In contrast, the Beatles
have the 969th most popular Twitter account. Of course, Ringo Starr doesn't log
on to share observations like "A little party
never killed nobody,"
either.
We find something
amusing about the fact that Twitter's chief rival, Facebook, is among the top
50 most popular Twitter accounts.
But when you have more
than 1.1 billion users, maybe it makes sense that folks want to keep up on
their favorite social media site while ... well ... visiting their other
favorite social media site.
Facebook's nearly 12
million followers put it at No. 44.
But this interloping is
nothing new. In the earliest days of Google+, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was its most popular member.
You wouldn't think a
revered Brazilian novelist would be satisfied with writing 140 characters at a
time.
But Coelho, whose 1988
novel, "The Alchemist," has sold more than 30 million copies, is an
active user with more than 8.7 million followers (No. 83).
"Twitter, I think,
is an art," Coelho told The Guardian this year. "Because if you're connected to
people you learn how to (summarize)."
Works for us.
There's probably not
anyone in the world who would be more humble about having 8 million followers,
right?
The exiled Tibetan
spiritual leader account is No. 91 on Twitter. And whether he personally writes
the posts or not, they come off to anyone who has heard him speak as his
authentic voice and tone.
Consider this account a
nice palate cleanser after reading where Kim Kardashian went shopping last
night.
Apparently astrology is
a big deal in Indonesia. This account, which awkwardly proclaims itself
"The LARGEST ASTROLOGY in the WORLD," has 7.2 million followers, good
for No. 110 on the Twitter list.
As best we can tell,
this is a Twitter feed, written in Malay, that's the basic equivalent of those
one-line horoscopes you get in the daily paper. (Note to fellow Libras:
Apparently, it's OK if we're distracted at work today. We might have a cold.)
Stephen Fry is famous.
But you wouldn't think he'd be this famous -- twice as many followers as Jamie
Foxx.
The British actor and
writer, whose credits range from "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows"
to cult favorites "Black Adder" and "Doctor Who," is a
perfect fit for the site -- its 140 characters just enough to share his dry
wit. Or pictures of malformed
M&Ms.
Either way, he's got 6.3
million followers, landing at No. 131.
"A mum and a wife
with a really cool day job."
Well, yes, if being the
queen of Jordan is a really cool day job.
It's not every day you
find royalty on networking sites. But she's answered questions from followers
online and told interviewers that sites such as Twitter can be used to achieve
real social change. With nearly 3 million followers (No. 456), it seems to be
working.
How does a Canadian mom
end up with 2.7 million Twitter followers, making her account the site's 554th
most popular?
Well, naming your son
Justin Bieber helps.
In addition to helping
promote her famous son, Mallette talks about her projects, including an
autobiography, and offers encouragement to teen mothers such as herself (she
was 17 when Bieber was born).
What's a guy got to do
to crack the top 600 around here? Dorsey was one of Twitter's founders and has
racked up 2.4 million followers. But come on. That only makes him No. 643 on
his own site.
(We'd hate to think how
Evan Williams and Biz Stone feel. They've got even fewer followers.)
Who says good always
triumphs over evil?
We scoured Twitter for
Harry Potter, and the boy wizard is nowhere to be found. (No, the official
movie account doesn't count.)
Meanwhile, Lord
Voldemort is doing just fine for himself, thank you, with more than 2.2 million
followers (No. 725).
This is a parody
account, so there are no official ties with creator J.K. Rowling, the books or
the movies. But we're OK with that. It lets him be even meaner.
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