MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines’ AlDub love team represented the best of Twitter, says Rishly Jaitly, Twitter vice president for Asia Pacific and the Middle East.
“AlDub is a global case study that has amazed us. It represents the best of Twitter,” Jaitly told The STAR recently.
AlDub refers to the love team of Alden Richards and Maine Mendoza, who played the character of Yaya Dub, which went viral on Twitter for the last 12 months.
“Since this love team started, Twitter has witnessed the rise of AlDub from a local sensation to a global social TV phenomenon that shows the Filipino culture to the world. Alden and Maine have showcased the best of the Filipino traits and values to the world through Twitter. As a cultural milestone, #Aldub1st anniversary is a celebration not just for the couple and their fans, but also for Twitter, which has been the home of AlDub nation all around the world since the beginning of their love story,” Jaitly said.
It brought all Filipinos living in different countries together through Twitter. The top 10 markets where the #ALDUB1st anniversary hashtag was most used are Philippines, US, UAE, Canada, Singapore, United Kingdom, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Italy and Spain.
“AlDub had the world tweeting. I have colleagues telling me AlDub is trending in the UK. The United States is the second country most popular for using the hashtag AlDub,” Jaitly said.
“It’s a global celebration from Asia-Pacific to North America to Europe to the Middle East. We couldn’t be more excited about AlDub,” he said.
Using the #ALDUB1st anniversary hashtag, AlDub fans worldwide sent over 6.6 million tweets on July 16 with the Twitter conversation peaking at 11,000 tweets per minute at 11:28 a.m. in anticipation of the special first anniversary edition of the TV show.
In one of the episodes in October 2015 dubbed “Tamang Panahon, AlDub recorded a total of 41 million tweets.
The AlDub love team was accidentally discovered at the “Juan for All, All for Juan” segment of the variety show Eat Bulaga where Maine portrayed the character of a housemaid and Alden as himself. Due to the strong chemistry between the two main characters, their budding romance caught the attention of the audience and the first ever “kalyeserye” began. Filipinos immediately went to Twitter to express their love and appreciation for the new TV love couple.
As a global case study, Jaitly noted how the producers of “Eat Bulaga” are using Twitter to get the reaction of the people and get ideas for its story telling.
“Twitter is now the second screen for television. In the Philippines, while the users are watching the shows, they’re on Twitter at the same time. We feel the conversations spike during the show, and it’s not by chance, the producers of the show are using Twitter to listen to the audience, to get ideas by using their screens,” Jaitly added.
“The AlDub phenomenon reflects what’s unique about Twitter because it’s live and public. Twitter has a very unique role in popular culture. Because our platform is live, virality can happen. I learned through AlDub about the approach to courtship and respect to elders. I think what you have here is something uniquely Filipino, happening to Filipinos,” he said.