America’s affinity for low-budget, sci-fi thrillers specializing in the ridiculous has just been realized. Premiering last night at 9pm ET on SyFy, Sharknado was at one point Tweeted 5,000 times per minute, culminating at 10:58pm just as the made-for-TV movie came to a climactic end.

Data compiled by Twitter, as shown below, displays just exactly how popular of a trend Sharknado became on Twitter, burgeoning to an impressive 5,032 Tweets per minute or about 83 Tweets per second.

To break it down even further, for every million people in Washington D.C., Massachusetts, and New York City, Sharknado was Tweeted 5,133; 1,300; and 1,150 times respectively.

The film stars Tara Reid (The Big Lebowski, American Pie) in what’s likely an ill-fated attampt at a career revival, having fallen off the A-list radar after battling bouts of anorexia back in 2001. Seeing as how Sharknado has turned into such a phenomenon, though, Reid may have just thrusted herself back into the spotlight.

With a tagline as blunt as “Enough said!” how could you not be even the slightest bit curious about Sharknado? The premise itself should be enough to draw you in: A massive tornado sweeps up a slew of man-eating sharks and dumps them on unsuspecting Los Angeles.

Check out the official Sharknado trailer here:


 



 



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