Lady Gaga Breaks Twitter Record, Reaching 20 Million Followers

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Lady Gaga performs at the Nokia Theatre on November 30, 2011 in Los Angeles.

On Saturday, Lady Gaga set a new record by breaking the barrier of 20 million Twitter followers. She’s bested the likes of Justin Bieber and Katy Perry, who fall behind at around 18 and 16 million followers, respectively.

Gaga’s follower count has been climbing steadily, reaching 20,112,777 by Monday afternoon. In other words, if you wanted to catch up, you’d have to get every resident of New York City to follow you two and a half times. Or get every single citizen of Syria to follow you once.

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The singer was also the first user to reach the milestones of 10 and 15 million followers, Business Insider reports. In August 2010, she usurped the title of most-followed person on Twitter from fellow pop star Britney Spears. Gaga’s latest Twitter surge likely comes from the recent launch of her Born This Way Foundation and the launch of her own social network, Little Monsters. At the rate her Twitter fan base has been growing, she’s expected to tack on another million followers within the month.

Lady Gaga claims to maintain her Twitter feed personally, interacting with fans directly, rather than handing off the responsibility to her management team.

Only 10 Twitter accounts currently boast more than 10 million followers. Of those 10, only two are not singers: Barack Obama, who has been known to sing but is mostly famous because he’s the President, and Kim Kardashian, who is mostly famous for unknown reasons.

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