Twitter's biggest star is a man in his 70s

The benefits of Twitter are legion. You can tell random strangers that you've just purchased a new phone or keep your friends abreast of your latest bowel movements. Alternatively users can join forces with stand-up comedians in exciting witch hunts against homophobic columnists. Celebrities meanwhile can use the service to reveal how normal they are by telling us they've just purchased some hummus. From a real shop.

Not that any of this was relevant to a 28-year-old comedy writer from San Diego called Justin Halpern who, after being dumped by his girlfriend several years ago, had to face the hipster lifestyle catastrophe of returning home to live with his parents.

The arrangement did have one particular upside. It allowed him to spend more time with his then 73-year-old father, Sam, a man who – not always deliberately – happened to be one of the funniest and simultaneously rudest men ever. Justin didn't realise his dad was hilarious when he was a kid; his father's preference to wander around the house naked and use phrases before dinner such as "let's just shut the fuck up and eat" were the source of embarrassment rather than fun. But then as a teenager he began writing down his father's quips, foul-mouthed pearls of wisdom and blunt advice in notebooks.

Years later, returning home as an adult, he found a whole new use for the 140 characters or less on Twitter and began posting his father's philosophies and TV-watching asides for the amusement of family and friends.

Going from zero to a million followers in nine months, Shit My Dad Says become the first viral Twitter success story. The site has spawned a book and a sitcom which begins airing in the US this autumn and stars Star Trek legend William Shatner as the cantankerous lead. The book shows Justin inherited his father's comedy genes and, as well as being very funny, also paints a great story of regular American family life – albeit with added swearing and an obsession with bowel movements. Halpern Sr's quotes, though, remain the main attraction. Here, are some of our favourites; and feel free to add any Shit Your Dad Says below …

PARENTING "A parent's only as good as their dumbest kid. If one wins a Nobel Prize but the other gets robbed by a hooker, you failed."

NATURE "Science and Mother Nature are in a marriage where Science is always surprised to come home and find Mother Nature blowing the neighbor."

CHRISTMAS "Everybody's broke, so here's the rule for Christmas this year; if you still shit your pants, you get a present. Otherwise tough shit."

TECHNOLOGY "Son, no one gives a shit about all the things your cell phone does. You didn't invent it, you just bought it. Anybody can do that."

KIDS' HAIR "Does anyone your age know how to comb their fucking hair? It looks like two squirrels crawled on their head and started fucking."

VOICEMAIL "Why would i want to check a voicemail on my cell phone? People want to talk to me, call again. If i want to talk to you, I'll answer."

MUSIC "What are you listening to?...I know who Hall & Oates are goddammit. It's the moustache guy and the gay man."

EVIL "The worst thing you can be is a liar … OK fine, yes, the worst thing you can be is a Nazi, but then, number two is liar. Nazi 1, Liar
2"

THE X FILES "So, the woman and the dopey-looking guy screw, and then look for aliens - or they just screw and sometimes aliens follow them?"

FEAR "When its asshole-tightening time, that's when you see what people are made of. or at least what their asshole is made of."

BULLIES "You're gonna run into jerk offs. But remember, it's not the size of the asshole you worry about, it's how much shit comes out of it."

WATER SLIDES "You go on ahead. I'd rather not be shot out of a tube into a pool filled with a bunch of nine-year-olds' urine."