The internet's rabid social media contingent, activating its rapid-fire tendency to isolate and magnify the slightest silliness of the day's news, immediately zeroed in on Mitt Romney's assertion on Wednesday night that while he "loves Big Bird," he plans on cutting the federal subsidy for Sesame Street's home network, the Public Broadcasting Service.
Almost instantly, Twitter lit up; "Big Bird" peaked at 17,000 tweets per minute, "Sesame Street" hit 10,000, and #SaveSesameStreet became the top trending topic on the microblogging service. Three parody accounts such as @FiredBigBird and @SadBigBird -- cropped up, to varying comedy efficacy, and then on Thursday morning, the official Sesame Street feed nodded at the uproar, tweeting, "Big Bird: My bed time is usually 7:45, but I was really tired yesterday and fell asleep at 7! Did I miss anything last night?"
Meanwhile, the Sesame Workshop, the non-profit that runs the show and its ancillary projects and foundations, was slightly more serious in its response, tweeting, "We are a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization. We do not comment on campaigns, but weâ??re happy we can all agree that everyone likes Big Bird!"
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