Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga have unwittingly found themselves in a Twitter war, instigated by Bieber fans who want to knock "Poker Face" singer Gaga from her perch as Twitter's most-followed celebrity.
And to add insult to injury, the campaign to oust Gaga from her position picked up steam on Wednesday — which, perhaps not coincidentally, is the chanteuse's 26th birthday.
A message tweeted on Sunday explains the reasoning and methodology behind the micro-blogging jihad against Gaga's Twitter dominance.
"To all beliebers this is operation unfollow Lady Gaga," the message reads. "I'm sorry if your a 'little monster' but don't ou want Justin to be #1 followed on Twitter? Well here is the plan we all know that all beliebers with twitter follow Justin and we don't have to ceate a million accounts with this plan. First, it's simple to lok up Lady Gaga on Twitter. Next unfollow her. Simple! I'm not trying to trash Gaga or anything I am a fsan of her music but I think Justin should be #1 followed on Twitter! That's all but believers please spread the word for me okay? Thank you all that helped!"
For those unfamiliar, "beliebers" is the pet name for Bieber fans, and "little monsters" is the pet name for Gaga fans. The typos and grammatical errors in the above paragraph are said in context and preserved for flavor.
Since then the campaign — which bears the hashtag #OperationUnfollowGaga — has become a trending topic on Twitter and has sparked outrage throughout the Twitter community.
"Really Beliebers? That's pathetic," one Gaga fan scoffed.
"Beliebers trended #OperationUnfollowGaga so Justin Bieber becomes the most followed woman," another Gaga partisan cracked. "Stupid, since it's giving Gaga MORE followers."
Even Bieber fans have watched aghast as the campaign spread across Twitter like wildfire.
"I'm a Belieber and I won't unfollow Gaga. People who started this TT aren't real Beliebers, they're just sick people," a Bieber fan going by the Twitter handle "flow" lamented.
"Really? That's actually pathetic guys," another Bieber fan noted, fretting about what the trend might do the reputation of Beliebers everywhere. "And you wonder why we get labelled as 12 year olds."
So far, the campaign has been unsuccessful. Lady Gaga still sits atop the Twitter charts with 21,764,871 followers of this writing, compared to Bieber's 19,070,722, according to Twitter Counter. And while Bieber has gained about 164,000 followers in the past three days, Gaga too has amassed followers at an even faster rate, tacking on about 184,000 new Twitter fans in the same period.
Neither Bieber nor Gaga has yet spoken out about this none-too-civil war in the Twittersphere.
But perhaps that's not so surprising in Gaga's case, since she recently took a vow of silence.Ho