If Sweden can do it, why not the Netherlands?
A new Twitter account, @Netherlanders, will debunk myths that all Dutch people wear wooden shoes and live in windmills by taking a page from the @Sweden playbook, where a different Swede controls the country’s official Twitter account each week.
Beginning July 16, a new Netherlander will run the account each week, starting on Monday morning, according to the project’s description. @Netherlanders has already racked up 1,300 followers, which is still a far canal ride from @Sweden’s 70,000.
But unlike @Sweden, this project isn’t sponsored by the government or a tourism campaign. It’s run by a Netherlander named Elmer who was inspired by Sweden’s account.
“The goal of Netherlanders.eu is to either invalidate or confirm existing prejudices about The Dutch, now also known as Netherlanders,” he writes. The site is looking for interested Twitter users, and they ask that you submit your information in Dutch so they know that you are, in fact, a Netherlander.
Other countries have implemented the idea of having a citizen control the country’s namesake Twitter account, too. Ireland, New Zealand, and Australia are also doing something similar, but none of them have reached the popularity of @Sweden.
So it’s up to Elmer to charm us with his weird European ways like our other one-named favorite, Sweden’s Sonja, and entice us to follow later this month.
Photo via Ryk Van Toronto/Flickr