Lady Gaga is the most followed person on Twitter

Lady Gaga, Queen of Twitter Photo: AP

A tip of the lobster hat to Lady Gaga, who is now the most followed person on Twitter, having displaced Britney Spears. It’s a triumph against the odds. Who ever could have guessed that the world’s most insufferable self-promoter would excel at a medium that enables celebrities to text banalities to an audience of LOL-speaking sycophants?

Actually, I can think of a more telling accolade. The other week Gaga made it into Private Eye’s Pseud’s Corner after telling Vanity Fair: “I have this weird thing that if I sleep with someone they’re going to take my creativity from me through my vagina.” Hmm. May I suggest that if you regard that part of your anatomy as the source of your creativity, you may not be giving your art enough thought?

But still: almost six million people now follow Lady Gaga’s Tweets. And she’s a prolific user of the site, letting her fans (or “little monsters”) in on such personal insights as how many millions of records she’s sold, and how much airplay her singles are getting. What a daily treat that must be.

Then again, Lady Gaga fans are curious people. One obsessive acolyte recently daubed a picture of the Poker Face singer feasting on the flesh of a dead unicorn. Not so much a little monster, that guy, more a psychopath. But it does raise the question: what kind of weirdo uses Twitter to keep tabs on celebrities?

Twitter is a miraculously user-friendly way of getting real-time news. Use the platform intelligently and it provides access to the teeming brains of the planet’s most brilliant people – writers, comedians, philosophers. But pop stars? Or Hollywood actors? What’s the point?

Celebrity Twitter accounts are supposed to provide insight into their authors’ inner lives. In practice, they reveal nothing. (Admittedly, last year Britney Spears’ stream of sunny updates was interrupted by the ominous invocation: “Glory to Satan.” Disappointingly, it turned out to be the work of a hacker.)

Other famous folk use Twitter for nakedly commercial purposes. Reality TV star Kim Kardashian allegedly earns nice money by Tweeting, shilling for brands such as Reebok. Classy. You wonder if there’s any product she wouldn’t be happy to rave about for a fee. Stannah Stairlifts? Anusol?