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This week Australian senate backbencher Cory Bernardi released his book The Conservative Revolution. In it, he calls abortion, “an abhorrent form of birth control”, claims that “political pressure from the left has ushered us into a morbid new world,” and generally brings shame on the great Australian tradition of awesome dudes called Cory.
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Sure you could take comfort in the fact there is only one Cory Bernardi, opposed to the millions of eyeballs set rolling across the nation by his cockeyed view of the world. But let’s not crack open those Crown Lagers just yet because Cory has 11,888 Twitter followers. And that’s despite not tweeting since October last year. Also, he follows exactly zero people; not even Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who is his boss.
Worst of all, he’s not even good at Twitter, as can be seen in these highlights:
And while it’s possible a lot of his followers are just people who want to get in first with snarky comments, we thought we should still take a minute to reflect on some of the awesome people who have fewer Twitter followers than the controversial South Australian rower-turned-politician.
Peter Whish-Wilson: @SenatorSurfer
Greens Senator for Tasmania Peter Whish-Wilson has 3,737 followers, pretty shit for a dude who loves the environment and is from Tassie—automatically making him the nicest guy ever. He tweets about environmental issues and focuses on the black holes in the government’s approach to wildlife, conservation, whale slaughter in our oceans, and reactionary culling as a political response.
Did we mention he doubles as the Greens spokesperson for whaling? How do you say, “Peter tweet me for a whale of a time”, in sonar?
Senator Nova Peris: @NovaPeris
Senator Nova Peris has 2,206 followers, which we admit isn’t a pile of dead cats. But she is the Australia’s first indigenous woman elected to federal parliament, the first Aboriginal Australian to win an Olympic medal, a single mother from an unplanned teen pregnancy (she raised her daughter while representing Australia in hockey and athletics), and is the founder of the Nova Peris Girls Academy.Best of all, her feed is consistently uplifting with stories of education in rural areas, shots of her hanging out with local skaters, and the occasional glimpse of her mega babe daughter. Oh she also told Andrew Denton that her first childhood memory was Cyclone Tracy. It doesn’t get more Australian than that.
Tim Costello: @TimCostello
World Vision CEO Tim Costello walks the fine line of being highly religious and a totally relatable cool dude. While Cory Bernardi presents religion as the domain of the far right, Costello supports sexworkers, refugees, same sex relationships, and shares his experiences meeting interesting people around the world. Sure it’s hard to talk about religion, politics, reconciliation, and urban poverty without seeming patronising, or being drowned out by boos; but through his role at World Vision, and directly to his 11,050 followers, Costello provides a consistently balanced and sensitive perspective on some of Australia’s most sensitive topics.
Also the next time your grandpa tells you you’re going to hell you can just show him a Costello retweet and tell him to get fucked.
Philip Nitschke: @philipnitschke
It’s pretty hard to make euthanasia funny, it’s even harder to make euthanasia funny in 140 characters. Despite that, Philip Nitschke manages to provides his 1,158 followers with assisted suicide gold. To be fair he’s not all about bringing the LOLs, his eloquent pro euthanasia stance makes him the inverse to Bernardi’s blaring “right to life” rhetoric. Bonus points for his tweet, “Hey Cory Bernardi, you live close to my #euthanasia clinic, and I think I can fast track you!”
The Scream: @MunchsTheScream
It’s not an overstatement to say that Munch’s expressionist reflection on mental illness The Scream is one of the most famous painting in the world. It’s been called, “an icon of modern art”, a version of the work (Munch produced four) broke records in 2012 when it sold for $120 million, and it’s sparked a series of Dan Brown-esc art heists over the past century due to it’s penchant for being stollen. Plus it’s totally on Twitter. Sure it doesn’t say much, just kind of goes “Ahhhhh!!!” every few days, but surely one of the most famous art works ever deserves more than 5,006 followers.
Sure Bernardi also goes “Ahhhhhh!!!” all the time, but it’s nowhere near as charming.
Follow Wendy on Twitter: @WendyWends
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