THIS POLL HAS BEEN CLOSED AS WE DISCOVERED NON HUMAN VOTERS. THESE VOTES HAVE NOW BEEN DELETED.
It’s been a month since we published the list ‘30 Most Influential People on Twitter in Lebanon‘. We have now taken the feedback we got into consideration, and reviewed, revised and updated the list to become the tightest and most complete compilation of the top Tweeps in Lebanon to have ever existed! And if that is not enough, we now invite you to shape this list by voting for who you think deserves to have the top ranking on Twitter in Lebanon!
Due to cheating, there are no fair winners of this poll. We are very sad because of this, and bad things happened on Twitter. We apologize if any of the people on this list became a victim of sabotage by robot voting, and got their names dirty because of this list. We feel very uncomfortable about this, and would like to, once again, apologize.
However, we have counted 4940 HUMAN votes, and Haifa Wehbe got the most votes according to our readers with 2768 votes, which makes out 56% of all the 2famous.TV votes.
There are also some big boom super star newcomers on the list. This is because it’s hard for us to locate Twitter accounts that does not have “Lebanon” as their location. But now Lebshawnquotes, Nadine Labaki, Slutterhouse, Ragheb Alama and Nancy Ajram has changed their locations to be part of our list! Thank you guys!! You make our job so much easier :*
And to give our readers the opportunity to stay in touch with with the freshest tweets from the stars on Twitter, we now display the three latest tweets from all the people on the list. You can also see the social impact according to the KLOUT ranking system, as well as links to FaceBook Pages, Websites, and more! (We used Tweet Grader to measure the social impact on Twitter, and the list is as of 1st of May 2012).
Oh Boy! If this is not a complete power list, we don’t know what! But don’t be shy to send your feedback, so that we can reach our goal of creating the most perfect list ever made.
Follow the updates on #lebtweeps
And if you want to give us, the creators of this list, a little boost on our local influence, please do follow us:
Follow @ekvollFollow @MrMatiasFollow @2famousTV
Here is the Tweet News video that we made for Zaven Kouyoumdjian (#3) on Future TV in Lebanon:
The super awesome T-shits are designed by Jorgen, and can be bought from dijibutik.com
POPSTAR / SINGER
Ranking by followers: #3
KLOUT Score 73
YouTube Chanel
FaceBook Fan Page
01 – Haifa Wehbe
World Twitter Ranking: 16,500 – UP 500
Follow @HaifaWehbe
Haifa Wehbe has got 2768 votes, which is 56% of all the 2famous.TV votes.
Increasing her follower base by 50,000 in just a few weeks, superstar Haifa Wehbe, aka 2Famous Diva, now has 226 000 active followers, and is still the unchallenged Queen of the Lebanese Tweeter-sphere. Of course, being an international superstar gives her the advantage of having fans and followers from countries with real internet (sorry Lebanon, you all know what we mean…) Even knowing that her local fans have a hard time loading Twitter she takes them seriously, and is famous for interacting with her patient followers.
And they do appreciate it. In web forums and blogs all over the world she is being praised for her tweets and her presence among her fans. She even thanked 2famous.TV when we released the Twitter list a month ago!
“Thank you @2famousTV, @mrmatias & @ekvoll for reminding audiences who’s the REAL queen of twitter :) xoxo #HaifaMJK http://t.co/MomNtGdO”
When @MrMatias from 2Famous.TV lost his phone he tweeted Haifa to ask her what phone she was using and then asked for a spare one. Longshot, but, nevertheless, she replied:
“Blackberry Porsche :) RT @MRMATIAS: Hey @HaifaWehbe – What phone are you tweeting from? If i get the same, will I become the King of Twitter?”
“I have an iPhone as well. My team all use Androids & Berrys RT @UxSoup: @MRMATIAS Personally she uses a Blackberry, her team uses iPhones.”
“@HaifaWehbe 10x Haifa! Super awesome. let me know if U have a spare phone? Mine is Lost+broke! Wud B epic 2 tweet from z phone of a legend!”
“@MRMATIAS lol what was your now descended phone?”
Then the power cut and the connection got lost, so Matias never got Haifa’s phone. That’s a bit how Twitter works; You need to react quickly to be able to interact because a Tweet becomes history as soon as it has been sent, like a feather falling from the sky, looking to be picked up by the wind and travel into the unknown horizon… Well, ehm, new phone or not, three mentions from Haifa made Matias’ twitter account skyrocket by 100.000 places on the world twitter rank system. Haifa manages to be a superstar and still manages to give a lot of herself in her tweets.
Any superstar or superstar wannabes have something to learn from Haifa when it comes to Twitter, because she really “gets” it. And now her picture is all over town on some rather nice looking billboards #superstar
(We still don’t have phones we can tweet from, so if HTC, Apple or Nokia reads this, well, then we would like to get a free phone from you. We’re sure we could work something out to make it worth it for you too;)
Here are her latest Tweets:
Good night :)
@NadooshPoetry xoxo
Merci bebe :) RT @myriamsfn: @HaifaWehbe big hi from Montpellier:) Just wanna tell u congrats 4 MJK album from a crazy fan of Elissa Kisses
POLITICIAN
Ranking by followers: #4
KLOUT Score 64
Saad Hariri’s Website
02 – Saad Hariri
World Twitter Ranking: 19,996 – down 500
Follow @HaririSaad
Saad Hariri has got 48 votes, which is 1% of all the 2famous.TV votes.
As a foreigner in Lebanon it’s hard to keep track of the politics that happens in this country. But through Twitter we can at least we get a general idea. Saad Hariri is still present on Twitter and has a rock solid position as the second most influential person on Twitter in Lebanon.
We had the pleasure of talking about our Walk of Causes project, where we walked across Lebanon, at the Rafiq Hariri University on Earth Day. His dad has a university named after him! How cool is that? Unfortunately Hariri was not attending our talk, but the enthusiastic students (who’s all on twitter, obviously) made us forget that he wasn’t there, and showed us some good time at the campus!
When it comes to his tweeting it is pretty obvious that he is a politician, and he tweets about issues that he finds important. And if he is anything like the students we met he is probably really cool.
He has 130000 followers but we suspect he could have had a lot more if his fans had real internet.
Here is an article that New York Times wrote about his Tweeting.
Here are his latest Tweets:
سعد الحريري ينعي نصير الاسعد: خسرنا اليوم أخا عزيزاً ورفيق درب وهب حياته للدفاع عن قيم العدالة والحرية والحق https://t.co/RCLMJkOq
الحريري: الحفاظ على إنجاز التحرير يتطلب من الجميع التعالي عن الأنانيات والحزازات والتبصر بما آل إليه مصير الوطن https://t.co/UulAuLgT
I won't stay long, I have to go, have a good day all. God bless you
TV PRODUCER & HOST
Ranking by followers: #7
KLOUT Score 55
Zaven’s website
Zaven’s FaceBook Page
03 – Zaven Kouyoumdjian
World Twitter Ranking: 31,394 – up 3000
Follow @zaven_k
Zaven Kouyoumdjian has got 18 votes, which is 0% of all the 2famous.TV votes.
Thanks for taking us to dinner Zaven! After we launched the previous list Zaven got interested in our work and wanted to meet us. Not knowing too much about him, except for a quick google around, we had a really good time getting to know him and his friends!
Later he had his team to interview us and made a show about Twitter in Lebanon. Zaven might be third on this list, but he was the first to do a “Home at Matias and Jørgen’s place” for a TV show! That proves he’s a good journalist, and that has a great eye to spot talent! Our vote totally goes to him. He is very active on Twitter and does some cool contest every ones in a while. Like this one:
Now back to my twe-contest: What’s in common between #Twitter & #Titanic? Answer in 3 words and win round trip to New York with #ghazitravel
That’s the way we like to see people use Twitter!
Here are his latest Tweets:
@charbouli happy birthday
@MazenSaadAldin1 I'll take ur first answer :)
@HamaHinnawi actually yes, liked ur tie a lot. in my wardrobe now waiting 4 suitable occasion. Wish i got before show. http://t.co/YzjVhsU4
POPSTAR / SINGER
Ranking by followers: #1
KLOUT Score 77
Elissa’s website
04 – Elissa Zakariar Khoury
World Twitter Ranking: 33,209 – up 5000
Follow @elissakh
Elissa Zakariar Khoury has got 669 votes, which is 14% of all the 2famous.TV votes.
With her 240.000 followers on Twitter Elissa is undoubtedly one of the biggest superstars in Lebanon. The fact that she is ranked under people with lower scores might be explained by the fact that she is too 2famous which makes people feel intimidated by her and think that she is unreachable, so they don’t interact as much as other fans? Anyways, she gets so many direct messages and hate males that she cant answer them all:
“Dear lovers, please avoid sending me private messages unless it’s urgent, dont wanna upset anyone coz im not able to reply to everyone xoxo”
If our algorithm had taken pictures on Twitter into consideration, there is a chance Elissa would have ranked even higher. She tweets a lot of pictures. She is also known for her general inspirational tweet quotes, like:
“Gd morning lovely people.always remember that the very important secret in life is to start every day with a smile &get it over with!”
Personally we like it better when she tweets with a personal twist, something we have noticed happening more of lately.
Sometimes she retweets interesting articles and she updates her fans on where she is going. But still, it is hard to get to know Elissa through her tweets, something that could play a factor to why she doesn’t earn the top score on the list. But if she really went for it, it wouldn’t take Elissa much effort to climb on the list. She just have to share more of herself.
Here are her latest Tweets:
It's a sports day:) having my breakfast with a lovely friend then ll spend some time doing sportssss:)behind a busy schedule!
So good morning! Have a nice day
The more u count yr blessings,the more blessings u ll have to count!I always do,& I count u as the nicest blessing,God bless u each day,
POLITICIAN
Ranking by followers: #6
KLOUT Score 61
Mikati’s website
Mikat’s FaceBook Pag
05 – Najib Mikati
World Twitter Ranking: 47,346 – up 1000
Follow @najib_mikati
Najib Mikati has got 5 votes, which is 0% of all the 2famous.TV votes.
Checking out Mr Mikatis’ Tweets makes us feel lucky that we’re not in politics. It’s very complicated stuff. Like some sort of science that has it’s own vocabulary. He often tweets his meeting agendas and it seems really hectic being the prime minister. Though, we have to admit, as outsiders that don’t understand much of the local politics, we don’t find his style so entertaining.
But with 42.000 people following him we are sure a lot of people are very interested in his tweets. He tweets both in Arabic and English and the tweets that he writes himself is signed with N.M. His team #hashtags the tweets they make and this seems to be a great way of creating clarity about who is tweeting what from the account. Because it is always a bummer when you suspect that someone else is tweeting from your heroes account, right?
He tweets about the meetings he is going to and who he is meeting. Once in a while it seems he spends some time tweeting, retweeting and answering his followers. We just follow him since he is the president and in case he one days tweets: “We will get real internet!” We would so totally retweet that tweet!
Here are his latest Tweets:
المشاهد المؤلمة التي رافقت هذه المجزرة تشكّل وصمة عار على جبين الانسانية، ويجب ان تكون حافزا لتضافر الجهود لانهاء النزاع في سوريا ووقف العنف
ميقاتي: أدين الاحتكام الى العنف لحل النزاعات، مهما كانت، وأعتبر خصوصا ان قتل الاطفال جريمة بحق الانسانية لا يجوز السكوت عنها
ميقاتي: أدين المجازر التي وقعت في بلدة الحولة وغيرها من القرى السورية، وذهب ضحيتها العشرات، من بينهم أطفال ونساء وشيوخ
RELIGIOUS FIGURE
Ranking by followers: #10
KLOUT Score 52
El Amin’s Website
El Amin on FaceBook
El Amin’s YouTube channel
06 – Sayyed Ali El Amin
World Twitter Ranking: 48,783 – up 6000
Follow @SayyedAliElAmin
Sayyed Ali El Amin has got 8 votes, which is 0% of all the 2famous.TV votes.
We still haven’t learnt Arabic, but we notice that Sayyed has gone up 6000 places on the world Twitter rank. This could be an indication that more and more people in the Arab world are using Twitter to spread information in their own language. This is good news for Sayyed Ali El Amin who only tweets in Arabic. Sayyed has more than 30,000 likes on his FaceBook page, he has a webpage and, like 2Famous.TV, he has his own channel on YouTube. Because of the slow internet we couldn’t check out to much of his stuff, but he puts videos from interviews and TV-shows he attends. And his channel is probably a great way for his fans to stay updated – as long as they understand Arabic better than the 2famous.TV crew.
Here is one of his tweets translated from Arabic by one of our readers:
”Man’s life is in his freedom… He who burry his convictions in his fears, is a dead Man but with a postponed burial”
Here are his latest Tweets:
@jazzi61 أسأل الله أن يتقبل دعاءكم وأن يحفظكم ويرعاكم ويكثر في الأمة من أمثالكم الحريصين على جمع كلمتها واتحاد صفوفها وإبعاد الفتن عنها
@alothaiqi عليكم السلام ورحمة الله وبركاته ، وأسأل الله أن يحفظ بلاد الحرمين الشريفين وسائر بلاد العرب والمسلمين من الفتن وأن يجمع كلمتهم .
@alothaiqi عليكم السلام ورحمة الله وبركاته ، السيد يشرف شخصياً على الحساب ومعه أعضاء مكتبه وهو يعبر عن آرائه وأفكاره .
TV ANCOR / WRITER / HOUSEWIFE
Ranking by followers: #9
KLOUT Score 58
Mona’s FaceBook Page
Mona’s blog
07 – Mona Abou Hamze
World Twitter Ranking: 56,107 – up 8000
Follow @monaabouhamze
Mona Abou Hamze has got 78 votes, which is 2% of all the 2famous.TV votes.
If hotness was part of the algorithm for making this list, Mona Abou Hamze would have most definitely been right up there on the top. But even if being extremely gorgeous doesn’t help Mona much on this list, she still manages to claim an impressive 7th place! What does she do? We’re sure most Lebanese know this, but as two outsiders trying to figure out what the Lebanese fame scene is all about, it can be a bit hard to catch Mona. Or it might be that our research methods are not good enough to capture her essence – unless she simply is one of those famous housewives that are famous because they are housewives, something that a lot of people can identify with.
Whatever it is, she has a blog in Arabic, and she often tweets links to her latest blogposts.
And we are glad to see when stars use Twitter to interact with their followers, not only to inform them (as many politicians do). We can also reveal that she is, like the 2famous.TV crew, concerned about social issues that she think is important, though she seems to be a bit more mysterious about it:
“Hope you enjoyed the weekend Tweeps. I’m working on a huge social project. Will keep you posted ♥”
And, did we mention that she is hot?
Here are her latest Tweets:
"إذا رجعت بجنّ وان تركتك بشقى، لا قدرانة فلّ ولا قدرانة إبقى"
يا لبنان يا بيتي و يا وطني... http://t.co/SCBNEi31
http://t.co/hnsNg998
إذا رجعت بجنّ وان تركتك بشقى، لا قدرانة فلّ ولا قدرانة إبقى!
يالبنان
@akhbarlelnasher Thank you Akhar El Nasher <3
ACTIVIST
Ranking by followers: #13
KLOUT Score 57
Imad’s Blog
08 – Imad Bazzi
World Twitter Ranking: 63,555 – up 5000
Follow @trellalb
Imad Bazzi has got 24 votes, which is 0% of all the 2famous.TV votes.
We always enjoy following activists on Twitter as we know they have a huge potential influence when their agenda hits the international news stream. Activists often seem to be lurking around with the potential of booming when the time is right. Imad is still the highest ranked activist on the List at number 8.
He is also running a pretty popular blog, and is nominated for Nations United Blog Award in Toronto in June, which is pretty awesome!
His blog was featured on the 2famous.TV list of the 40 most visited blogs in Lebanon.
He tweets about his life as an activist and, to the pleasure of his followers, he manages to keep a personal touch while still tweeting interesting information. It seems like he answers and retweets quite a bit. He tweets mostly in English, and a bit in Arabic.
Imad Bazzi thinks blogging is the most efficient way of doing activism in Lebanon, and he uses his own blog to raise awareness about social issues in the Middle East.
Here is a tweet from his life as an activist doing a workshop in Tunisia.
“Another day in a Tunisian taxi, another driver insisting that am Oussama Rahbani. This is becoming annoying lol”
Here are his latest Tweets:
أنا مش عارف على شو جبران باسيل وزير الطاقة .. ليش أصلاً في كهرباء؟ #Lebanon
RT @TerroristDonkey: @TrellaLB لأ مش مزبوطة! الكهربا موجودة بس ما في نور يا تريللا
@AreenRabi1 ما شكلوا حدا شايف شي الصراحة :)
JOKERS
Ranking by followers: #12
KLOUT Score 55
09 – Lebshawnquotes – NEW!!!
World Twitter Ranking: 70,574 – NEW!!!
Follow @lebshawnquotes
Lebshawnquotes has got 13 votes, which is 0% of all the 2famous.TV votes.
We were in doubt if we should allow this account on the list or not. On the one hand, we only accept personal Twitter accounts. And strictly speaking this is not a personal Twitter account. On the other hand we got quite impressed by @Lebshawnquotes that is run by two teenage boys. They didn’t get ranked in the previous list, but have now changed their location to “Lebanon” so that they can be ranked by 2famous.TV!
So, in order for the 2famous.TV crew not to split over a silly fight about the civil status of a Twitter account, we decided to let it pass. Because @Lebshawnquotes is one of the surprising newcomers that changes the look of the top Tweeps in Lebanon.
It’s somehow different to any of the other accounts on the list, as it’s run by two 14 year old girls. And if you are, like 2famous.TV, born before the 90s, you will soon understand that you are an internet retard in comparison to the new kids.
Because these girls decided that they wanted to spread some love and laughter to the lebanese people, and started a Twitter account together to tell jokes. So if you’re in for a laugh every once in a while, it’s totally worth following these two pioneers. They found a niche and went for it. Great job!
And as many young people on Twitter (and in life generally) they understand the power of community thinking. It’s like “I scratch your back, and you scratch mine”, and BOOM!, you have 10.000 followers. They are part of circles like #TeamFollowBack which is a group of young Tweeps that is following each other. Classic phenomenon. Grown ups would never think of that…
Here is an example of one of their jokes:
If she has 200 likes and 100 comments in a photo, what is missing? Her clothes..
Here are their latest Tweets:
I love it when I buy a bag of air, and the company is nice enough to put a couple chips in it
A guy knocked on my door asking for a small donation for the local pool, so I gave him a glass of water
If Europe uses Euros shouldn't Africa use Afros?
BELIEBER
Ranking by followers: #15
KLOUT Score 35
Marie-Jo on Tumblr
10 – Marie-Joe
World Twitter Ranking: 73,398 – up 1000
Follow @OhJDBforeva
Marie-Joe has got 9 votes, which is 0% of all the 2famous.TV votes.
Marie-Joe used to be the youngest person on the list, and she still is the youngest person with a personal twitter account on this list. She is 15 years old, and a sworn Justin Bieber fan. For those who don’t know what this means, we can tell you that this is a world wide phenomenon that has turned into some sort of a teenage subculture that crosses any cultural borders in the world today. These kids calls themselves “Beliebers”, and are joining their forces to become super powerful on Twitter. It’s like democracy in a way, where the leader is a soft love song singing American Teenage dude with awesome karma. That’s all it takes, really.
But we have to admit that we at 2famous.TV got surprised when we first discovered her on the list. Not so much by the fact that she was there, but more because we should have known that Justin has a solid foot planted in Lebanon too.
Anyways, Marie-Joe is the most influential teenager on Twitter in Lebanon, so we decided to meet up with her for a little chat. And again, our own prejudges slapped us across the face, as we somehow secretly expected to meet a crazy girl wearing 200 pictures of Bieber all over, or something like that… But how uneducated and ignorant we were at the 2famous.TV office to underestimate the most powerful people on the internet today! Shame on us!! Marie-Joe is a down to earth, mature and intelligent teenager with a heart for Twitter. She isn’t in love with Justin, but she likes his music and think that he is a great role model.
And if you are wondering how she can reach to the top ten on Twitter in the country with “only” 8000 followers, we can reveal an explanatory secret: She is followed by Justin Bieber himself! Yeah, that’s right, the most famous teenager ever to have existed, the man with billions of YouTube hits, the ultimate teenage girls secret crush follows Marie-Joe on Twitter! He knows who she is. And perhaps this is the explanation to why she is so real and down to earth. No need to stress around when Justin Bieber is following you, right?
Well, to be honest, we don’t know all that much about Justin Bieber, but having met Marie-Joe makes us think that she would make a great role model for other teenagers. And if Beiber influenced her in this direction, he must be doing something good.
Here are her latest Tweets:
One person can make a difference ~ Help Stop Child Abuse. Donate a tweet. I did http://t.co/ANlhqkq8 #DT @helpspreadthis
RT @meghanbelieber5: @justinbieber So many people tell me to stop tweeting you because you will never notice! Please prove them wrong! #NeverGivingUp #BELIEVE 26
RT @justinbieber: @meghanbelieber5 never say never right? :)
POET
Ranking by followers: #14
KLOUT Score 42
Website
11 – Suzanne Alaywan
World Twitter Ranking: 74,445 – up 1000
Follow @SuzanneAlaywan
Suzanne Alaywan has got 2 votes, which is 0% of all the 2famous.TV votes.
Suzanne is a poet and artist that blogs mostly in Arabic. These are great news for the Arabic readers, but it totally sucks for us, as we really don’t understand anything from what she is doing. But she must be doing something pretty fucking good when she claims the 11th position on this list, something that many of the greatest pop stars in this country can only dream of.
On her profile picture you can see some jewelry with a picture of a deer inside of it. Next to it there are some beads on top of a yellowish knitted pice of fabric. We don’t know what this means, but since it’s the only thing we have to go by, we will give it a shot. Besides, they say that a picture can tell more than a thousand words, which would be about 31 tweets (if the average word is 4,2 characters).
The deer symbolizes an innocent dreamy future, trapped in a glass bubble to be worn around someones neck till the end of time, like a prisoner of beauty. The yellowish fabric symbolizes our society’s constructed need to cover our skin, here presented as a backdrop for everything. Almost blending in, at least color wise, is the gold, which symbolizes the fuel that fires the engine of humanity. But it’s not only gold and money that has taken our spices as it’s prisoners. Here the gold is a piece of jewelry that decorates the trapped innocent deer and turns it into a symbol of status and beauty, something we are sure Suzanne can identify with. But the fact that the actual deer is surrounded by a thin layer of silver, not gold as the rest of the jewelry, makes it obvious that the deer, which is the main subject of the jewelry, is being discriminated against by the gold that rules the world. The beads dancing in over the top left corner is our religion.
However, sometimes she writes in English:
“@alichehade Thank you Ali for the kind invitation, but honestly i am not a TV person. In fact, i rarely watch TV”
That’s how famous Suzanne is; she can’t even be bothered to go to TV interviews, which kind of means her followers gets exclusive information, in a way…
Here are her latest Tweets:
@___WiNG__ (f)
@ghaima1 أو نجمة على حجر
@Fa6ima87 الخوف يضعف النوافذ يا صديقتي، ويضاعف الجدران
<img src="http://si0.twimg.com/image