Mark Hamill discovers the Force is strong with his Malaysian fan base

Hamill's tweet which swapped the US flag for Malaysia's turned out not so much a mistake but a happy accident, as it led to his discovery of a nation of adoring fans. — AFP

Hollywood actor Mark Hamill tweeted that he stumbled into a nation of fans, following an earlier post where he mistook the Jalur Gemilang for the somewhat similar-looking American flag.

Also a writer, he played along with the general amusement, but reiterated that no matter which country he meant to mention, no nation would measure their worth just by money.

“No country measures their worth in (also, I accidentally blundered into a LOAD of Malaysian followers),” he said.

Now that we all have had a good laugh at my expense for mistaking a TEENY-TINY flag of Malaysia for a TEENY-TINY Old Glory-the fact remains the same: NO country measures their worth in(also, I accidentally blundered into a LOAD of Malaysian followers) #HammyHeartsSoutheastAsia pic.twitter.com/SI3nLW80jJ — Mark Hamill (@HamillHimself) January 14,2020

On Jan 13, he tweeted about deleting his Facebook account in protest against the social media platform’s decision to allow political campaigns to continue using targeted advertisements, even ones that contain falsehoods, to reach out to users.

So disappointed that #MarkZuckerberg values profit more than truthfulness that I've decided to delete my @Facebook account. I know this is a big "Who Cares?" for the world at large, but I'll sleep better at night. #PatriotismOverProfits > https://t.co/seb2eJMTo6 — Mark Hamill (@HamillHimself) January 12,2020

The tweet linked to a New York Times article reported that Facebook will not monitor the truthfulness about the messages being sent out as part of the political campaign.

However, he mistakenly used the Malaysian flag emoji instead of the American flag when trying to say patriotism is more important than profit.

He later responded to his own tweet, with an emoji of the correct flag.

The flag swap prompted replies by Malaysian fans, who tweeted their support for Hamill’s stance while others made Star Wars related jokes, in reference to the actor’s iconic role in the movie franchise.

His follow-up tweet on Jan 15 received a new slew of fan tweets, with several jokingly suggesting other flags he could accidentally use, including the Liberian and Chilean flags.

Big love from Malaysia, from a big fan of yours here (since 1977)!

Here is the ANH Luke Skywalker inspired shadow puppet/ wayang kulit we created for our cultural project, hope you like it. pic.twitter.com/l7inwnHRAn — fusionwayangkulit (@fusionwk) January 14,2020

Malaysians love you pic.twitter.com/lwtDboo36G — SarahTuya (@saltedc75766028) January 14,2020

Malaysia is paradise. You couldn't have picked a more beautiful place with nicer people to accidentally post a flag from. Nicest accidental friends you'll ever make. — Gary Danger Moore (@GaryMoo14010104) January 15,2020

Hamill has 3.6 million followers on Twitter where he tweets frequently to interact with fans. His now-deleted Facebook page had over 900,000 followers.