#UnfollowMcCain

Submission 7,590

Part of a series on Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. [View Related Entries]

Overview

#UnfollowMcCain refers to Twitter users unfollowing Arizona Senator John McCain after he tweeted that he was 74 followers away from 3 million, and was hoping to reach that number. This led to thousands of Twitter users unfollowing McCain, presumably in response to their displeasure that McCain voted for the controversial Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

Background

On December 4th, 2017, Senator John McCain tweeted that he was 74 followers away from 3 million, and implored his followers to spread the word so that he could reach that number.^[1] The tweet gained 1,600 retweets and 4,700 likes. It also received over 25,000 replies, giving it an abysmal Ratio.

Developments

Twitter users responded to the tweet expressing their disappointment at McCain, who had recently voted for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. Shortly after McCain's tweet, Twitter user Jon Cooper tweeted his disappointment at McCain using the hashtag #UnfollowMcCain, gaining 7,300 retweets and 9,100 likes (shown below).

Twitter users unfollowed McCain en masse in response to McCain's tweet, many of whom voiced their reason for doing so was McCain's vote. Twitter user @staygold8512^[2] tweeted such a reason and gained over 580 retweets and 6,500 likes (shown below, left). User @montyboa99^[3] did the same and gained 490 retweets and 720 likes (shown below, right).

As of December 5th, 2017, McCain has lost over 13,000 followers. The story was covered by dozens of news sites including The Verge,^[4] Arizona Central,^[7] Complex,^[8] Belfast Telegraph,^[9] HipHop Wired,^[10] San Francisco Gate,^[11] New York Daily News,^[12] Washington Examiner,^[13] Tucson.com,^[14] Sputnik News,^[15], Mashable,^[16] Fortune,^[17] Gizmodo,^[5] and Daily Dot.^[6]