The Power of Bieber

On Friday morning, June 15, 2012, Justin Bieber performed on the Rockefeller Plaza outside the NBC Today show studios. Before the concert, he sat down with Matt Lauer to discuss his tour.

Longtime Today show host Matt Lauer confessed that Bieber had convinced him to sign up for twitter, something he said he swore he'd never do. During the interview, Lauer asked the 18-year-old pop star to prove his influence by helping him gain followers, "I want to find out the power of Bieber. I'm gonna do a little test here... I want you to tell your 23 million followers to follow me."

After first promoting the release of his new album Believe on June 19th. Bieber finally complied, tweeting from @justinbieber at 8:18 that morning:

"Everyone follow my man @mlauer" 

Matt Lauer had quietly signed up for twitter the day before, but said he had "zero followers." Lauer said that NBC's director of digital news operations, Ryan Osborne would streak in the studio if he can gain over 750,000 followers by Tuesday, June 19.

I found Lauer's account before the Bieber blitz and clicked to follow his tweets, taking this screen shot showing 85 followers. Joining right before me were: Amanda Wright @adwritght10, Susan @savedbygraceto, Carrie Mitchell @MonsterPuma, and Lauren Boudreau @LBoudreauu.

"We're going to see the power of Justin Bieber by Tuesday," said Lauer.

Within three minutes, while Bieber typed away, Lauer announced: "We have 9,000 already, okay? And this has been going on for three minutes... Ryan, start taking your clothes off."

Within five minutes, Matt Lauer had 30,753 followers and was trending.

Only one day later, on Saturday, June 16, @mLauer had over 131,000 followers. Today, he has nearly 140,000. Although he won't reach the 750,000 mark he had hoped for, it's still quite impressive.

Will Matt Lauer remember me, having been one of the first 100 to follow him on twitter? Nah, probably not. It's fun trivia, though, just another story for tvgrrrrl's files.

Bieber will be back on NBC on Wednesday and Thursday nights, June 20th and 21st, for his All Around the World tour TV special airing at 8 p.m. each night. (NBC can be found on channels 4 and 1020 in Orlando on Brighthouse Cable.)

@TVGrrrrl is finally on twitter #SaveTheSingOff #ImADamVP

After years of swearing I'd never have my own twitter account, I finally broke down and signed up last week under none other than, "@tvgrrrrl" (that's 4 R's in case you accidentally find the one with 3 R's – not me.)

Anyone living in Orlando knows that the number one way we all communicate around this part of the country is via person to person texting on our beautifully personalized androids and iphones. To reach the masses, Facebook is followed in Florida. Myspace here seems dominated by people looking to cheat and diehards who signed up a dozen years ago and refuse to admit that no one reads their page anymore. Twitter? I don't really know anyone who's on twitter who isn't also throwing the same posts into their Facebook account. So, it seemed silly to bother.

#SaveTheSingOff

Then, a grassroots campaign was launched by fans to SaveTheSingOff – that's The Sing-Off television show which aired on NBC from 2009 to 2011, hosted by Nick Lachey, and judged by Ben Folds, Shawn Stockman and Sara Bareilles. It is sadly absent from NBC's 2012 fall schedule and fans are rallying to save it, starting a petition (sign here), websites, and a twitter hashtag trending campaign for #SaveTheSingOff.

I feel a personal investment in the show, having watched from day one. My eyes glued to the set each episode, I shunned friends' invites to go clubbing and instead, made them watch with me, moving work schedules when needed, and even skipping class and faking the flu one December (shhh – don't tell). I was so thankful when Brighthouse Cable made shows available for on-demand-viewing, that I watched the show almost exclusively on channel 304 last season.  

I blogged about The Sing-Off from the beginning. Over a thousand people read my articles, and I think of each and every one of those readers as a gift. It makes all the time spent researching and fact gathering worthwhile. 

The whole reason I started this twitter account was to tweet the hashtag: #SaveTheSingOff. 

However, now that I'm here, follow me if that's your thing. Send me your thoughts on what you're watching on the boob tube. I love the weird and wacky off channels, love writing about what no one else is writing about, all those lower viewership shows on cable which are passed over by the mainstream media. 

#ImADamVP

I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention that Sing-Off judge Ben Folds (That's Dr. Folds to you and me) is launching his own CD with Ben Folds Five, sans a record label, using only a pledgemusic account where fans can prepurchase everything from CDs for $15, t-shirts for $27, vinyl for $25, and other goodies. That's akin to airing your own television show on youtube, without a network. Will it work? It seems to be picking up steam. 

Today, at 3 p.m. EST, BFF will be hawking more wares: actual handwritten lyrics "sealed with a kiss" from each of the gorgeous members of the band: Robert, Darren, and Ben. Oh, swoon! There are only 30 copies being sold for $400 apiece. For $2,500, twenty people can also have their own name added to the song, "Do It Anyway." I'm guessing without The Sing-Off paycheck, Ben Folds might need to raise a few extra bucks to cover the costs of putting out this project on his own. Judging from the success to date with 224% of the project funded and nearly 5,000 pledgers, I don't think this is an issue. His daring experiment appears to have paid off.

Go to this website and see how you do: Pledge Music. Should go fast.

If you're on twitter, send the link around about Dr. Fold's new project and add the hashtag: #ImaDamVp

#OnceUponAnotherTime

I must also mention that the angelic Sara Bareilles has just released a wonderful new EP, "Once Upon Another Time." The EP was produced and recorded at Ben Folds' Nashville studio. I've only heard snippets here and there, but it sounds simply lovely. Who else can solo a cappella and sound that phenomenal? The 5-song EP is available here on Amazon.com as an mp3 download for only $5 (okay $4.99, whatever). The EP has received the notoriously esteemed label of "Explicit Lyrics," due to her "Sweet As Whole" song (get it?). Bless her little heart. 

The song, Beautiful Girl is only found on the B-side of her vinyl record single, Stay. I was only able to find it from collectors for $30 apiece, so good luck on that one.

The songs are so wonderful, I'll bet we'll all most likely be hearing them on future television soundtracks.