Sweden 'amused' by new Twitter plea from Colbert

US comedian Stephen Colbert has put out a second plea to take over Sweden’s official Twitter account yet has only succeeded in making the Swedish Institute “very amused”.

• ‘Be patient’ says Sweden to Colbert’s Twitter plea (13 Jun 12)
• Storm over 'official' Jew tweets from Sweden (12 Jun 12)

After his first video, which took issue with former curator Sonja and her infamous “Jew tweets”, US comedian Colbert claims to be unhappy with Sweden’s response of “be patient”.

On Monday night’s episode of The Colbert Report, the TV host made a second plea, in which he bragged of being solely responsible for doubling the number of followers of the @sweden Twitter account from 33,000 to 62,000.

“Sweden – I do not do patience,” he said in response to the Swedish Institute (SI).

“And the people of Sweden are clearly behind me.”

He pointed out that both his hashtag “#artificialswedener” and “#StephenColbert” were both trending in Sweden, replacing the Swedish trending topic of “Norwegians are a Degenerate Race of Herring Molesters”.

Previously, Sergio Guimaraes, SI’s media relations manager, told The Local that Colbert would have to hold on if he wanted the reigns of the account.

“People who are not Swedish citizens cannot take over the account, not yet anyway. We have a very long list already… Colbert will have to wait,” he told The Local last week.

On The Colbert Report, the comedian quoted these exact words with an “appropriated image” of Guimaraes – a screaming Viking complete with a horned helmet, and exclaimed that it was high-time that Sweden gave him the account.

For the time being, however, Sweden is holding out.

“We are very flattered with the attention, and very amused,” Guimaraes told The Local in response to the new video.

“I personally thought it was a lot of fun – though it wasn’t me of course in the video – but I take it all with a pinch of salt. There is a lot of responsibility to be referred to as the spokesperson for a whole country.”

In the first video, Colbert claims that due to his 3.5 million Twitter followers, he is “mathematically… 100 times more prepared for this than the entire culture of Sweden".

These sentiments appear to have resonated for Guimaraes when he shared details of the flood of fan response the institute has received.

“We’ve had a lot of emails, some 2,500 so far. According to my mathematics, that is some 0.07 percent of Colbert’s Twitter fans.”

“We are impressed, but remind Colbert that in the last national elections, 86 percent of Swedes voted. But our expectations are high, in any case, and we look forward to seeing if there is further interest.”

But as for the potential rule changes, Guimaraes remained resolute.

“We haven’t changed our stance. The rules still stand, though we’d never say never.”

Meanwhile, the former curator Sonja who featured heavily in Colbert's video, is excited about the possibility of the comedian curating.

"I don't know Colbert so well, but he seems like a fun guy some times," she told The Local.

"If he became @sweden, I wish he could actually come visit Sweden during that week. I could be his Swedish contact-person and helper!"

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Operation Artificial Swedener - Sweden's Response
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

Oliver Gee
Follow Oliver on Twitter here