DO PEOPLE TWEET ABOUT BRANDS MORE OUT OF HATE THAN LOVE?

The presence of two media brands -- the BBC and BET -- on this week's Top 10 Most Tweeted Brands chart (a collaboration between Advertising Age and What the Trend, the social-media trend-analytics service), raises some interesting questions about why people tend to tweet about brands. Both broadcasters dominated Twitter's "trending topics" list throughout the week because of consumer displeasure: the BBC (British Broadcasting Corp.) because of announced budget cuts that will result in curtailed programming, and BET (Black Entertainment Television) because a hashtag trend, #BETmessedupwhen, struck a chord and took on a life of its own. (Sample tweets: "#BETmessedupwhen they took away the top 25 countdown that used 2 come on saturdays!," "#BETmessedupwhen they sold out to Viacom," "#BETmessedupwhen they sold their BLACK entertainment company to a white man," and "#BETmessedupwhen they started doing inspirational on sunday ... thats what church is for. ... i wanna watch videos!!!")

Which is not to suggest that individual entertainment brands don't fare well on Twitter primarily because of fan love: Just look at tween mainstays Justin Bieber and Jonas Brothers. Oh, but wait! Bieber -- who is the No. 1 most-tweeted entertainment brand (or brand of any sort) again this week -- had plenty of people tweeting about him via the hashtag #RIPJustinBieber because, well, as the crowdsourced What the Trend description explains: "A mean trending topic started by people who don't like @JustinBieber trending." Harsh! (Such is the circular logic of the Twittersphere: Let's all complain about something trending, and thereby make it trend even higher.) And a Rio de Janeiro rock band, Galpao 29, got slammed on Twitter for getting caught up in a "free iPad!" SPAMbot attack.

But my favorite Top 10 brand this week is MeWithoutYou, a crew of Philadelphia alt-rockers (you can listen to a bunch of their songs at their official MySpace page) who've been described as Bright-Eyes-plus-Neutral-Milk-Hotel (two of my all-time favorites, by the way). They're a great band, but the Twittersphere apparently misinterpreted #MeWithoutYou as one of those fill-in-the-blank Twitter self-amusements (which then morphed into its own hashtag, #MeWithoutYouIsLike).

And so I have this to say to you, dear reader (cribbing from Twitter): Me without you is like a Happy Meal without a toy! SpongeBob without Patrick! A rainbow without sunshine! Winnie the Pooh without Piglet! A stripper without a pole!