Jeremy Clarkson and Zayn Malik both had rough days on Wednesday.
“Top Gear” host Clarkson was fired by the BBC after getting into an altercation with a producer of the show. And Malik bid an emotional farewell to One Direction, exiting the boy band after opting out of the group’s tour last week.
But if social media relevance is at all important to Clarkson, he has an extra reason to be glum.
Twitter data from Wednesday indicates that Malik’s 1D departure completely dominated Clarkson’s ouster on the social networking service.
On Wedneday, the phrases “Zayn” or “Zayn Malik” amassed 5.7 million Twitter mentions, while One Direction or 1D pulled in 2.9 million mentions.
The phrases “Jeremy Clarkson” or “Top Gear,” meanwhile, pulled in a relatively paltry 70,490 mentions. (See chart below.)
Adding insult to injury, “Jeremy Clarkson” or “Top Gear” actually collected many more mentions — 216,570, to be exact — the day before, when news broke that Clarkson was expected to get the ax the next day.
So there we have it: Boy bands targeted to teenage girls are apparently more popular on Twitter than cranky, middle-aged hosts of BBC programs. Now you know!
