When news broke that Simon Cowell, a professional giver of opinion, and rumoured transatlantic music mogul had joined Twitter, it seemed like a match made in heaven.
No ad to show here.
Bar the slight Spartacus moment at the end of the tweet, Cowell’s first was the usual Twitter fair, “It’s official, I know it’s taken a while. It’s really me! We’re live in 10 minutes. I’ll keep you posted. Lots of love #iamsimon”.
Of course, Cowell is famous for his frankness and it was not long before Twitter-etiquette was forgotten.
The following tweets — all sent out during the live broadcast of his “reality” television show, the US version of “singing” competition X-Factor — went on to mock his employees, the fellow judges on the show. Nothing was off-limits. Everything from the decisions they made on the show, the chances of a favoured contestant winning to even how they look was analysed in bursts of 140 characters.
Adapting quickly to the social network’s disregard for grammar, he expressed his love for Twitter saying, “I love being on twitter,” before adding upon the show’s end: “Thank you for allowing me to beat the other 3 in the popularity poll. Paula looked like she’d sucked on a lemon!”
He also took the time to reply to a tweet from CNN talk show host Piers Morgan, who recently quit as a judge of another of Cowell’s television shows, which alleges to find the most “talented” person in the US.
Morgan mocked Cowell’s Spartacus moment saying to him in a tweet, “At last! Bring. It. On. love #iampiers”, before goading him into a Twitter battle to see who could amass the most followers.
Quickly added to the battle was Morgan’s long time Twitter-foe, Lord Alan Sugar.
With just eleven tweets to his accounts, Cowell had amassed over 300 000 followers on the microblog.
