Why are people tweeting ‘Mark Hamill’? Star Wars actor gives masterclass in going viral (thanks to Ed Balls)

Mark Hamill has got himself being talked about on Twitter by simply tweeting his own name.

The Luke Skywalker actor is adored by users on the platform, with each of his tweets receiving thousands of likes.

Last night, Twitter user Lozzabean12 told the star: “You could just tweet ‘Mark Hamill’ and you’d get thousands of likes.”

He accepted the challenge and received — you guessed it — thousands of likes. In 11 hours, the tweet racked up over 450,000 likes and 27,000 retweets.

The force was certainly with the Jedi actor, and ‘Mark Hamill’ promptly started trending on Twitter.

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Other celebrities, such as Star Trek’s George Takei and The Wire star Lance Reddick, joined in the fun by tweeting Hamill’s name:

But let’s not forget – Ed Balls walked so Mark Hamill could run.

Balls, the former Labour MP and shadow chancellor of the exchequer, created a Twitter storm when he tweeted his own name 11 years ago.

In a classic social media blunder, Balls had been searching for an article about himself but accidentally tweeted his own name instead.

Each year on April 28, Twitter celebrates the anniversary of Balls’ tweet with #EdBallsDay. Balls embraces the joke and even joins in the festivities. In 2016, he tweeted a picture of a cake depicting the tweet that started it all off.

Much to Twitter’s delight, Balls tweeted Hamill to say a simple: “You’re welcome…”

The Twitter user that started the challenge followed up with an Anchorman gif that perfectly summed up how the trend took off:

Hamill is no stranger to tickling Twitter’s funny bone and recently remarked that “the force is strong” with a woman throwing a lobster from a boat.

The long-running Star Wars franchise has captured the hearts of generations and Hamill himself certainly brings some sunshine to our Twitter timelines:

Gotta love Twitter sometimes, don’t you?