James Blunt — The King of Twitter Comebacks?
The year is 2004 — George Bush has been elected for a second term, Lance Armstrong has just won his 6th Tour de France and James Blunt has released his soppy and only number one hit “You’re Beautiful” that played relentlessly on the radio, holding the UK number 1 spot for 5 consecutive weeks. Most people think of James Blunt as the soundtrack to a wedding or painful break up and despite his 2005 album “Back to Bedlam” being the biggest selling album of all time by a British male solo artist, he is not exactly the image of cool. So how has this creator of high-pitched love ballads, who is a favourite amongst mums and grandmothers, build up such a legendary and hilarious online twitter presence with 1.7 million followers?
Controversial Humour
Blunt is not what you would call naive. He is aware that the vast majority of people are not fans of his music and his self-depreciating humour and quick, witty comebacks to online trolls almost redeem the fact that he has written one of the, in his own words, most annoying songs of all time. His funny tweets tend to garner a large level of engagement with some examples below amassing tens of thousands of retweets.
The singer will often swear and make sexual jokes in response to critical tweets transforming him from that singer everyone loves to hate to a relatable funny guy who is not afraid to laugh at himself and others.
He even engages with some of Twitter’s other popular celebrities like Ed Sheeran and Piers Morgan further displaying his switched on humour and far from serious approach to social media.
Singer/Comedian
However Blunt is not only keeping busy these days by tweeting jokes. Releasing 4 successful albums, a few of which have gone platinum, since his debut he has proven that he still has the musical talent that catapulted him to fame. Yet in the social media age, we live in today, it is difficult to discern whether people would still be listening to his music if he didn’t have such a unique social presence on Twitter.
His most recent album “The Afterlove” reached number 6 on the UK charts and of course, Blunt has used his twitter platform to promote it in his classic humorous style. An example being of the singer screen-shotting his fellow singer and friend , Ed Sheeran’s placing in the charts and covering his songs and album cover with his own.
He also retweets fans reactions of disbelief that they actually like his album.
By using humour and engaging with the public’s opinions of him, good or bad, James Blunt has created an online persona that is real and light-hearted, allowing him to change people’s perceptions of him. He is no longer just the singer with the “over-emotional miserable songs” but is often listed as one of twitter’s funniest celebrities with articles being written about his tweets, one such which was titled “30 Reasons Why James Blunt Won At Twitter”. Blunt has successfully managed to have a music career and a distinctive social media presence.
