Justin Bieber Ousted As Twitter Overlord, As Long As (Half of You) Follow Me?

Justin Biebers reign as the most followed person on Twitter has come to a swift and deplorably unceremonious end.

The 19-year-olds 37 million plus followers on the social media site have been brutally slashed without warning, even though his account still reads the same.

As it turns out,Socialbakers, a company that studies and analyzes social media metrics, has estimated that almost half of BiebersTwitter followersare either fake (around 16.7 million) or inactive (2.6 million).

Taking out the egg accounts, spam tweeters, the rarely or never tweeted users, and the Boyfriendsinger is left with 17.8million good and true beliebers.

This, of course, means previous record holder Lady Gaganow monsters back to her Queen of Twitter position with 19 million real followers.

As yet, theres no been public announcement from Bieber on the terrible news and there may not be any, what with his newly adopted Jay-Z silent stanceon responding to speculation.

For that matter has anyone actually tested Socialbakers analysis? And do we even know if Twitter plan on revising the singers account? We need answers!

But theres no getting around it, this is not a good look for the Biebs. Try as one might, theres no spin or Pollyanna-ism ! that can make the bitter pill of Twitter demotion easier to swallow.

Oh, wait heres a couple. No-ones (yet) suggesting that the pop star knewany of his followers were fake, and a quick scan of timelines doesnt reveal any undue concern by Beliebers about their relegation.So there is that.

An interesting perspective on Biebers follower culling came via a Canadian outlet, whowrote:

When compared to his two closest Twitter number rivals (Lady Gaga, Katy Perry), Bieber hasachievedso littlecommercialsuccess that the mere fact that he even has 17.8 million real followers mean hes already won the popularity war orto put in the parlance of the kids, hes got more Swag than the POTUS.

But jesting aside. The teen phenom remains one of the worlds first social media superstars to show just how far connecting with fans can be taken, and lets face it, 17.8 million is fantastic numbers.

Who knows, Bieber could be planning his Twitter coup even now?Never say never.

[Image via Featureflash / Shutterstock.com ]