Bake Off is back complete with giant celebrity cake heads, Noel Fielding’s wacky shirt collection and a Matt Lucas comedy sketch. We scraped Twitter to reveal what fans of the show have been saying over the last couple of weeks – and it seems Lottie could be on to a winner, as she is not only the most-discussed contestant but has also received a positive reaction too.
And while Paul has seemingly been irritating the majority of watchers, Noel’s popularity continues to shine, even if most of the tweets are just fans wondering where he buys his clothes. So, let’s see what we’ve learnt from crunching the numbers on social media.
Firstly, there’s a lot of love for Bake Off 2020 contestant Lottie Bedlow, as new research reveals she is the most popular contestant of those remaining on the show. Our study analysed over 14,000 tweets which mentioned this year’s stars and judges and found that she was mentioned most frequently, with 68% of tweets about her deemed as positive.
She amassed 512 tweets mentioning her in the period 28th September to October 6th, with 347 classed as positive. Some of the most common adjectives associated with her are ‘favourite’, ‘cool’ and ‘hottie’. The second most popular contestant amongst Twitter users was Dave, last week’s star baker. Of tweets about him, 59% were positive, and featured words like ‘star’, ‘cute’, ‘happy’ and even ‘smug’.
However, when it comes to negative reaction on the social media site, Sura topped the list with 44% of negative tweet mentions. Though words like ‘last’ and ‘bad’ were linked with the baker, 17 people used the laughing emoji alongside tweets about her, and six described her as their favourite.
And, when it comes to recently-departed Rowan, he received the most expletive-ridden tweets, with 15 mentions of the word ‘sh*t’, 12 of ‘f*ck*, and more importantly, 11 references to his waistcoat.
In terms of the judges, it seems Noel Fielding is solidifying his place as a national treasure, with 58% of all tweets about him of a positive nature – putting him far ahead of the other presenters. The word most commonly associated with him on Twitter was, naturally, ‘jumper’, proving he is the fashion saviour of the show, with ‘shirt’ mentioned frequently, too.
Paul Hollywood received the most tweets, 769 in total with 62% of those rated negative, while Prue received almost half the number of mentions since the data was analysed. And it seems fans are fairly split on the arrival of new judge Matt Lucas, with 490 tweets in total, 49% positive to 51% negative – it’s almost like a brand-new Brexit. Just what we need.