Twitter blows up with reactions over the news

Oct 24, 2014 11:45 GMT  ·  By

Today's big news is that Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II has finally got on Twitter. The Queen sent out her first official tweet on an account which has been set up in 2009 under the name The British Monarchy and it had something to do with the Science Museum and the Information Age Exhibition.

The royal tweet read “It is a pleasure to open the Information Age exhibition today at the @ScienceMuseum and I hope people will enjoy visiting. Elizabeth R.” Naturally, it wasn't long before the whole world went wild.

The Queen's message was accompanied by a photo showing her typing it herself

The message in question soon bean to be retweeted and favorited like crazy, since it was followed by a photo showing the Queen typing it herself, proving that Her Majesty had indeed user Twitter and not someone from her staff.

Also, there was an explanatory note which read “The last tweet was sent personally by The Queen from her official Twitter account @BritishMonarchy #TheQueenTweets.”

In under one hour, the message was reshared over 4000 times and favorited 3000 times. As always, Twitter immediately became an interesting social experiment, where people reacted in all sorts of way to this news.

The reactions came instantly: jokes, rants and people who thought they'd take advantage

Immediately, there were people which began cracking jokes, “The Queen should fit in well on Twitter as both have very little to do with the real world,” or “And the inevitable think pieces ‘Is Twitter over now that the Queen is tweeting?’...”

Others saw the perfect opportunity to liven up their follower list, asking Her Majesty for a follow back. A select few immediately realized the implication and tried to use her for her personal gains by pushing their products or services, while others simply used this as a means to get in direct touch with the Queen and ask her something they've already wanted to know “The moment I have been waiting for. I can finally ask the Queen what her favourite chocolate bar is?” one user said.

The fact of the matter is that the Queen has always kept up to date with the latest technologies, as part of her job description. Because the British Monarchy is as much an institution which needs public relations as a multinational corporation, they have been forced by modern society to take up all possible venues of communication, and that includes social media.

Just don't expect the Queen to be sharing selfies next.