JOIN USBehind "Bloombito" is Rachel Figueroa-Levin, a housewife of Puerto Rican origin who only wanted to entertain her friends and fend off boredom while she waited shut up in her apartment for Hurricane Irene to pass, and it has become a real Twitter phenomenon attracting more than 14,000 followers in just a few days.
"Hola Newo Yorko! El stormo grande is mucho dangeroso!," said Bloombito in its first tweet Saturday, a few hours before Irene made landfall at Coney Island.
As the hours passed, more and more people began to follow Bloombito's pronouncements amused by tweets such as "Los trainos y el bussos son muy operationo. Go to worko. No excuso!," which was posted Monday, the first workday after the storm.
Bloombito's fame has shot up like a rocket among net surfers, and among them is Bloomberg himself, who is a great fan of the social networks and who informs citizens about his policies via Twitter.
The mayor, on his Twitter account @MikeBloomberg, said to his alter ego, "Are you listening to me?" and posted a link to a video on YouTube of a press conference at which, upon being asked about Bloombito, he smiled and commented, "I have to improve a bit. But it's difficult - I'm 69 years old - to learn a new language."
Bloomberg's habit during many of his public appearances has been to spout brief comments in far-from-perfect Spanish in addressing the Hispanic public, and this behavior led Figueroa-Levin to create the Bloombito profile.