Star Wars legend Mark Hamill goes viral simply by tweeting his own name

There’s no doubt that actor Mark Hamill is one of Hollywood’s most beloved icons. While he is most well-known for portraying Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars franchise, in recent years, Hamill has also become known for his unique sense of humor on social media.

Hamill often interacts with his 4.7 million Twitter followers, and over Labor Day weekend, he proved that he is truly one with the Force after going viral for simply tweeting out two words: his own name.

It all started when a fan tweeted at Hamill encouraging him to pull off the stunt to see how many likes he could get. “You could just tweet ‘Mark Hamill’ and you’d get thousands of likes,” said Twitter user @LozzaBean12 to the actor.

It seems that Hamill was up for the challenge, as he retweeted the post with the caption ‘Mark Hamill’, and his tweet soon began to blow up online. Within a day of being posted, it had already racked up thousands of retweets and was being reported on by numerous outlets, including Insider, People, and USA Today. 

At the time of this publication, the post has over 32,000 retweets and more than 600,000 likes on Twitter. Soon, the trend extended to other celebrities on social media, including Ken Olin from NBC’s This Is Us and Lance Reddick, who is known for his portrayal of Cedric Daniels on HBO’s The Wire. 

Perhaps the most prominent celebrity to get in on the action was Star Trek mainstay George Takei. Also known for his large Twitter following and interactions with fans, Takei tweeted out Hamill’s name on Sunday, joking that the waiting game to go viral had begun.

Hamill joked after the stunt that tweeting out his name would purportedly work for everyone, although it should be noted that none of the celebrities that tried this trend came close to reaching the viral numbers of Hamill’s original tweet.

This is not the first time that the actor has broken the internet with a unique quip. After his surprise appearance as Luke Skywalker in the season 2 finale of The Mandalorian, Hamill jokingly tweeted out if anyone had seen anything good on television lately, and the post went viral.

Given his propensity to interact with fans, it is probably a safe bet that this won’t be Mark Hamill’s last brush-up with online fame.

For more Star Wars news, keep up with Dork Side of the Force.