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50 Smartest Celebrities on Twitter

2 minute read

When it comes to big brains and big followings online, Leonardo DiCaprio appears to best them all: the Wolf of Wall Street actor is the smartest celebrity on Twitter. DiCaprio scores higher than the rest when judged by a commonly used reading comprehension test. Here’s where the tweeting and famous rank, according to analysis of the reading levels of the tweets produced by the 500 most followed celebrities on the popular social network. Or test the reading level of any Twitter username.

1

Leonardo DiCaprio

Followers

10,537,477

7.5

2

Pattie Mallette

Followers

3,240,488

7.3

3

Jimmy Kimmel

Followers

4,105,738

7

4

Ludacris

Followers

9,495,505

6.8

5

Green Day

Followers

3,394,539

6.8

6

Samuel L. Jackson

Followers

3,876,935

6.8

7

Usher Raymond IV

Followers

9,624,350

6.6

8

JWOWW

Followers

3,618,047

6.6

9

Wyclef Jean

Followers

3,512,750

6.5

10

Jessie J

Followers

6,547,046

6.5

11

Kevin Spacey

Followers

3,465,262

6.5

12

Eva Longoria

Followers

6,957,631

6.5

13

Mike Tyson

Followers

4,313,917

6.5

14

Rev Run

Followers

4,348,803

6.5

15

Paulo Coelho

Followers

9,330,945

6.4

16

Seth MacFarlane

Followers

5,679,824

6.4

17

Paris Hilton

Followers

12,790,629

6.4

18

Pharrell Williams

Followers

3,916,429

6.4

19

FLO RIDA

Followers

5,430,990

6.4

20

Nicole Richie

Followers

4,439,241

6.4

21

Stephen Fry

Followers

7,024,230

6.3

22

Kendall Jenner

Followers

8,330,339

6.3

23

Stephen Colbert

Followers

6,679,206

6.3

24

Chad Johnson

Followers

3,609,118

6.3

25

Akshay Kumar

Followers

5,224,026

6.2

26

Willow

Followers

3,777,176

6.2

27

Lord Sugar

Followers

3,453,774

6.2

28

Anne Curtis-Smith

Followers

6,667,346

6.2

29

Scooter Braun

Followers

3,717,750

6.2

30

Ricky Martin

Followers

10,384,608

6.2

31

A.R.Rahman

Followers

4,243,642

6.2

32

J.K. Rowling

Followers

3,430,272

6.2

33

Marshall Mathers

Followers

18,374,747

6.1

34

Mary J. Blige

Followers

4,962,687

6.1

35

Jake T. Austin

Followers

3,356,790

6.1

36

Pitbull

Followers

17,130,614

6.1

37

Rainn Wilson

Followers

3,862,527

6.1

38

Floyd Mayweather

Followers

5,043,670

6.1

39

Ashley Tisdale

Followers

12,014,650

6.1

40

Drake Bell

Followers

3,088,771

6.1

41

Pitbull

Followers

17,130,615

6.1

42

Oprah Winfrey

Followers

24,784,725

6

43

Jennifer Lopez

Followers

28,273,688

6

44

Kelly Osbourne

Followers

3,730,469

6

45

Giuliana Rancic

Followers

3,315,673

6

46

Worlds Dangerouz DJ

Followers

3,492,788

6

47

LINKIN PARK

Followers

4,148,210

6

48

Beyoncé Knowles

Followers

13,448,230

6

49

Kelly Clarkson

Followers

9,688,482

5.9

50

Zach Galifianakis

Followers

4,157,413

5.9

Methodology
The ranking above is based on a reading comprehension test known as Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG). The SMOG test measures the number of three syllable words used in a text to calculate the years of education required to understand it. An environmental activist, DiCaprio often tweets about “conservation” and global warming which may have helped him earn the top spot.

In a recent analysis of more than 1 million tweets, we found that messages on Twitter average a fourth-grade reading level. All of the celebrities above exceed that grade. To find Twitter’s smartest celebrities, we analyzed the last 20 tweets from the 500 highest followed celebrities (stripped of URLs and hashtags), then ran the results through the SMOG test to calculate reading level. SMOG is intended for processing English, so users tweeting in multiple languages were removed. Computer processing of natural language has its limitations. For example, the SMOG test can falsely read slang as multi-syllable words.

You can test your own Twitter grade level or anyone else’s here.

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