The Top 50 People with the Most Twitter Followers

List of the top 50 celebrities with the most Twitter followers, in order. Since the advent of the microblogging social network in 2006, more than 200 million people have joined Twitter - many of them famous. With a single click, fans of people like Justin Timberlake, Oprah, and Emma Watson can read whatever the stars (and/or their handlers) deign important enough to Tweet to their multiple millions of followers throughout the world. Celebrity tweets range from the provocative to the inane and everything in between. Want to see selfies of Kim Kardashian in her boudoir? Or LeBron James by the pool? How about some one-liners that didn't make Ellen DeGeneres's daily monologue? Just click Follow for all this and more snippets of their daily "private" lives and thoughts, all conveniently packaged into blips 140 characters or less. 

The people most followed on Twitter in the world include actors, politicians, businessmen, and international athletes. Notably, however, most of the celebrities on this list are singers, rappers, or musicians. Taylor Swift, Beyonce, and Justin Bieber are all in the Top 10 - and ALL FIVE members of One Direction are in the Top 50 independently of each other. The "band" itself would also be on this list if it were to include bands / businesses, but alas, it doesn't - only individual people.

Why do you think singers are so popular on Twitter? Maybe it's because they are so accessible to audience who can go see them live. Maybe fans feel a personal connection to them because they relate to the lyrics in their songs - even though most are written by old men who the same fans couldn't pick out of a lineup. Twitter gives these teeming millions the opportunity to directly interact with their idols (and/or their publicists) with a simple Reply or Retweet. It's really something.

This data was collected via TwitterCounter.