How Did Blake Shelton Become Country Music's Top Tweeter?
posted in: Country • Music News
Blake Shelton, the country superstar who officiates as a judge on hit music reality show The Voice and makes up half of country music’s newest power couple, had his most recent record debut at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top 200 album chart. Now he can add another notch to his belt as country music’s most engaging star… on Twitter. Given his resume and achievements, Shelton is not an unlikely candidate for “Most Followed Country Music Tweeter””outside of Taylor Swift, of course. But you cannot judge somebody’s Twitter worthiness based on the number of their followers. No, you must also evaluate the content of their tweets.
Part of the description on Shelton’s account reads “You’re getting the real BS straight from Blake himself.” This is not an empty statement: Shelton is one of rare breed of celebrity that actually tweets from their own account as opposed to having a team do it for them. And he tweets a lot; all day, every day. The closest and most unlikely of parallels to Shelton’s Twitter feed is that of rapper cum professional instigator Lil B. Both constantly retweet @mentions, both make outlandish statements to the ire of the easily offended and both just do not give a damn.
This is why Shelton is so refreshing: his tweets are pure id. If someone tweets at Shelton talking shit then Shelton will just throw it right back at them. Any fan appreciation is returned in kind and, most importantly, there is no better troll than Shelton in the country music twittersphere. His specialty is imagined inebrated escapades. If you believed his tweets, then Shelton is shopping with Miranda Lambert drunk, peeing into dresser drawers, propositioning everyone in sight and, well, doing stuff like this. His online reputation is such that the second result in a search for “Blake Shelton Twitter” is the twitter account for Blake Shelton’s Liver.
It’s a wonder that any of Shelton’s handlers hasn’t tried to rein him in. Not that they should as Twitter was made to facilitate this kind of in-the-moment, immediate interaction. So why can’t more stars, not just in country music but in general, take Shelton’s lead? Sure, we’ve seen some ugliness delivered through tweets before. From The Game’s homophobic tweets to the WTF/TMI worthy missives from people like Joe Jonas and Solange Knowles.
So, a tip of the hat to Blake Shelton then. He’s keeping it real and just having some good, unclean fun and it’s not as though his effort has gone unnoticed. Shelton was recently nominated by notable country music blog Taste of Country for 2011’s Best Artist to Follow on Twitter. He was nominated for a few other awards too, but who cares about those!
Who are your favorite musical tweeters? Do you think Shelton is funny or do you wish he’d pipe down? Let us know in the comments!