It only became apparent to me a few weeks ago that Vietnamese television has a channel solely dedicated to the trials and tribulations of Tom and Jerry; I don’t think I had sat down to watch a cartoon since before I was a teenager. In fact, I can’t recall watching anything animated, prior to nostalgic encounter with the loveable cat and mouse, since Toy Story 3 was at the cinema back in 2010.
This idea to be so dedicated to a pair of animated characters made me think about two things. First, am I following fictional characters on social media? Second, is keeping an eye on the updates of parody and accounts that aren’t sport stars, friends, professional contacts, vacuous celebrities or politicians a turn off for potential employers?
Personally, there’s one golden rule to abide to here. DON’T promote anything that’s racist, defamatory, breaks injunctions or has the potential to upset. By all means you have the right to express your and share the opinions of others, but there’s always a metaphorical barrier that cannot be crossed.
Now, I follow and keep an eye on a number of profiles on Twitter which I consider to be funny. @Arsenes_eyes is a good example, who’s last tweet at the time of writing, just after Chelsea’s Champions League demise said that he would not be going to sleep until John Terry cried. He’s not really a fictional character though, as it’s based on a highly successful individual, although that is open to interpretation.
So who are the fictional stars of Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites? Surprisingly, it’s not Ed Balls or Aleksandr, the Meerkat from the insurance ads, but it is the ‘Common White Girl’, with nearly four million followers. This is swiftly followed by the ‘Real Girl’, who also posts random musings that don’t particularly interest me.
The first character from a television programme who I instantly recognised was the official account for Homer Simpson. He currently has a nice and tidy 1.6 million followers, plus an extra one from me because of his past content being rather good. However, there hasn’t been any posts since March 17th, so get back to some lawful work Fox, Murdoch and friends!
Meanwhile, on Facebook, the most popular is a surprising one (well for the British anyway) because its Mr Bean, with over 55 million fans. Quite a number for a character that last appeared out of the woodwork at the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony. Then again, the number of times the original series and the Ultimate Disaster Movie has been repeated around the world is probably at a number we cannot imagine.
So if you have a spare half an hour before bed, why not take a look out for your childhood heroes and their parodies on social media. There are some treats out there; including the Drunk Hulk, who’d probably act better than the one in the last film adaptation to be honest.
