Sweden to reveal Colbert Twitter news 'next week'

Officials in charge of Sweden's @Sweden Twitter account said on Thursday they are seriously considering handing the account over to US comedian Stephen Colbert, and plan to issue a decision on the matter as early as next week.

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The news comes following Colbert’s highly publicized #ArtificialSwedener campaign aimed at having him take over the Sweden's official Twitter account.

After two weeks of giving vague responses to Colbert's repeated requests, the Swedish Institute and Visit Sweden have both said they are discussing the prospect of Colbert becoming a curator of the Sweden Twitter account and plan to issue a verdict next week as to whether the TV host will get the account.

“We’re discussing it now, and we’re aiming at coming to a decision next week,” Sergio Guimaraes from the Swedish Institute told The Local on Thursday.

The Twitter account, in which a different Swede gets a chance to “take over” each week, won the Grand Prix award at the Cannes Lions International festival of Creativity for the best international viral marketing campaign on Wednesday.

Since its inception in December, the initiative has gone from strength to strength.

When last week’s curator “Sonja” caught international attention with her off the wall tweets about the Jewish community, her breasts, and her unusual food descriptions – the US TV host Stephen Colbert made his own plea for the honour.

Twice now, he has asked fans of his show, The Colbert Report, to email Sweden and to demand that he takes the reigns of the account.

Guimaraes previously told The Local that Colbert will have to “be patient”, but on Thursday he and his counterpart at Visit Sweden confirmed that team behind the account is taking the idea seriously.

“Of course, we’re very flattered that Colbert is interested, though we are concerned that he may not be able to give an authentic view of the country,” Johannes Karlsson, the head of PR and Social Media at Visit Sweden, told The Local.

“But we are now in discussions about the possibility,” he added, with Guimaraes confirming that a decision was imminent.

Meanwhile, former @Sweden curator Sonja Abrahamsson has taken issue with Colbert’s flippant attitude towards her tweets, Sweden, and his iPhone – and posted her own response video.

“Come to Sweden and suck our Swedish meatballs,” she says in the video.

“But forget about your Swedish Twitter account obsession.”

Oliver Gee
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