Twitter war: AlDub beats Showtime

MANILA, Philippines - GMA-7’s noontime show “Eat Bulaga” and ABS-CBN’s “It’s Showtime” yesterday went head-to-head over viewers and Twitter users.

It’s Showtime celebrated its sixth anniversary at the Smart Araneta Coliseum, while Eat Bulaga launched the National Pabebe Wave Day. The “pabebe wave” is a popular gesture of YayaDub, the character of Maine Mendoza in Eat Bulaga’s famous Kalye Serye.

It’s Showtime’s anniversary celebration drew a crowd of 16,000. 

Special guests were the top three love teams of ABS-CBN: Kathryn Bernardo and Daniel Padilla, Liza Soberano and Enrique Gil, and James Reid and Nadine Lustre. The show had the fans screaming wildly when their favorite love teams came on stage and showed their affection for one another during their song numbers.

Eat Bulaga, on the other hand, brought the National Pabebe Wave Day to the streets, the crowd dancing to the show’s theme song as they made their pabebe waves.

The Kalye Serye episode of Eat Bulaga was the first real date of Alden Richards and YayaDub at the mansion of her guardian Lola Nidora (Wally Bayola). The love team is popularly called “AlDub” and their fans call themselves “AlDub Nation.”

On Twitter, the war of the network shows started at 12:01 a.m. yesterday.

It was neck and neck before dawn yesterday as Aldub Nation with #ALDubEBforLOVE had reached 1.31 million tweets by 1 a.m., while #ShowtimeKapamilyaDay had a total of 1.02 million tweets at the same time.

But it became clear by around 6:45 p.m. that the Aldub Nation was winning the Twitter war with a total of 23.1 million tweets. #ShowtimeKapamilyaDay had 6.7 million.

Vice Ganda, main host of It’s Showtime, encouraged the show’s fans to tweet more.

Meanwhile, Joey de Leon, one of the hosts of Eat Bulaga, stayed awake with the AlDub Nation and tweeted updates and videos of him dancing as the Twitter count for the AlDub Nation rose.  

“We are the loved team,” de Leon said in an interview. “With the Kalye Serye, we want to bring back traditional Filipino values.”

“To those who are involved and in love with the Kalye Serye, congratulations,” he also tweeted.