The Curators of Sweden may have rejected Stephen Colbert’s attempt to become the first non-Swedish citizen to take over the @Sweden Twitter account, but now he has other offers to consider.
Cue the American Swedish Institute.
Located in Minneapolis, the American Swedish Institute “serves as a gathering place for people to share stories and experiences around universal themes of tradition, migration, craft, and the arts, all informed by enduring ties to Sweden.”
Last night, ASI President and CEO Bruce Karstadt sent a letter to Colbert, inviting him to take over their Twitter account. The letter, which has been obtained by the Daily Dot, is below:
It has come to our attention that you’ve been angling to take over the official Twitter feed for the country of Sweden for a week. We also understand your efforts up to this point have been unsuccessful. We sure wish you luck as you continue to pursue this worthy goal.
In the meantime, the American Swedish Institute, one of the largest Swedish American organizations in the U.S., would like to offer you control of our American Swedish Twitter feed for one day this week or next. We know this isn’t quite the same as tweeting for an entire nation, but as a major hub of American-Swedish relations, we hope you will find it an acceptable short-term substitute. Who knows, maybe the actual Sweden will see the work you’ve been doing for us, and reconsider.
You can tweet in English, Swedish, or in some hilarious, fakey mix of the two. We leave the comedy up to you, sir.
For us, the timing couldn’t be better – the American Swedish Institute is hosting a Grand Öpening of our newly expanded facility in Minneapolis on Sat., June 30. The Swedish Ambassador to the US, His Excellency Jonas Hafström, will also be in attendance. Just sayin’.
We offer you the tweeting responsibilities for sometime during Grand Öpening week, or some other time that would be more convenient for you. Like today.”
The American Swedish Institute has encouraged fans to spread the word on social media; their tweet currently has 12 retweets and a post on their Facebook page has nearly 4,000 likes.
Colbert argued on Monday that in one week he doubled @Sweden’s amount of Twitter followers.
“The biggest reason you should give it to me is because since I mentioned you on my show last week, your official Twitter account has jumped from 33,000 followers to 62,000 followers,” he said.
Colbert has yet to respond to the ASI’s offer.
The American Swedish Institute currently has 956 followers. If Colbert took over for a day, who knows how much that number would rise?
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