Miley Cyrus gives Malta an unwitting marketing boost

As further evidence that pop stars have become our true cultural overlords, local news portals and social networks were this morning inundated with the apparently urgent and celebration-worthy bit of news that ever-controversial pop star Miley Cyrus was seen waving a Maltese flag during a concert in Zurich, Switzerland last Saturday.

The news – first appearing on Facebook and enthusiastically reported by local media outlets Times Online and Malta Right Now – originated from Kirsty and Roxanne Bartolo, the sibling 'culprits' in question who bestowed the nationalistic talisman to the pop star and bragged about it on Facebook, posting a mobile-camera video as proof of their unwitting act of cross-cultural promotion.

But I'm being a bad journalist here, and 'burying the lede' as they say in my trade.

For while the the Maltese flag – or any flag, for that matter – carries instant weight and importance as an economical visual representation of any country; it just so happens that the Bartolo siblings also threw a packet of Twistees at the twerk-intensive singer, who also waved the cheesy snack on stage for all and sundry to witness.

A generous part of me wants to believe that this was all a sneaky, fiendishly intelligent bit of covert marketing on the part of the Malta Tourism Authority, but..