If you ask most people about the website Twitter, the main thing they’re likely to say is, “Oh, isn’t that the one where Demi Moore keeps going on about Susan Boyle?” In the public imagination, Twitter is starting to seem like a place reserved for those want to listen to celebrities warbling on, in 140 character or less, about whatever’s on their mind.
What people seem to wonder about less is whether it’s a good thing for celebrities to be on Twitter at all, either for them or for us.
Part of the problem is that there’s a difference between Twitter and most other forms of communication between stars and the world – with Twitter there’s no apparent filter. Most of the ways people get info about celebrities is heavily mediated, whether it’s by a publicist spinning particular stories, a magazine deciding on an angle for an article or an interviewer asking certain questions and not others.
The result is that celebrities seem interesting because everything’s set up to make it appear that way, with all the boring crap about their lives edited out. You see them at movie premieres, not waiting around for hours while the lighting crew set up the next shot, or sat at home in their pyjamas watching The Simpsons.
However Twitter removes all that and suddenly celebrities can say whatever they want instantly to hundreds of thousands of people, with no apparent mediation at all. That may sound like a good thing, but there are plenty of pitfalls, not least that what most of them have to say is deathly dull.
Fans who idolise a particular star might not be impressed when all that their favourite celebrity decides to tweet are deliberately obtuse messages that seem designed to make them look kooky (such as David Lynch, but then, what did you expect?), or if the celeb suddenly seems to decide that having loads of followers means they should start teaching their acolytes about the ills of the world (as Ashton Kutcher is prone to do). Other official celebrity accounts seem to be purely promotional and are probably maintained by an assistant, and then there are those celebs who think they’re funny, when they’re blatantly not.
Some celebrities do it well. Britain’s most famous Twitterer is probably Stephen Fry, who has over half a million followers. He has quizzes with his followers and actually points out genuinely interesting things to people. Ashley Tisdale, meanwhile, does not, preferring instead to come across worryingly like her character in the High School Musical films, with such highlights as, “Another beautiful day in Italy! Doing press then shopping yay!” and “Going to dinner!” (she’s fond of exclamation marks). 605,000 people get these updates. To be honest, if you’re Ashley Tisdale, this probably isn’t going to hurt you, but the service has been causing trouble for other celebs.
While Twitter seems like a rather one-sided private chat, it’s actually very public and celebrity utterances aren’t just followed by starstruck fans, they’re also monitored by the press. For example, when Demi Moore made a couple of jokes on Twitter about attending the final of Britain’s Got Talent (in response to messages she’d got), it was turned into headlines across the world that both she and Ashton Kutcher were definitely going.
Celebrity tweets also pop up in unexpected place. For a couple of days after David Carradine’s death, on the main Entertainment page of the BBC News website there was a quote from ‘The Office’ (US version) star Rainn Wilson, about how children of the 70s would miss the Kung Fu star. Not only was there no explanation as to why Rainn Wilson should be seen as a particularly sage commentator on the death of Carradine, but it also didn’t mention that the quote was taken from Wilson’s Twitter feed.
There’s also the problem of fake celebs on the service. In the last couple of days rumours have swirled that Michael Cera is trying to get Superbad 2 off the ground, due to some comments made on the Michael_Cera Twitter account. Some wondered whether this was the star being a bit of a prankster, but it took a while until others pointed out that there was absolutely no evidence that this was Michael Cera at all. Many who know Cera later said it definitely wasn’t.
No one is entirely sure how many fake celebrity Twitter accounts there are, but there are certainly a lot. Some are obvious parodies, while others have more obscure motives and try to convince followers that they’re in touch with the real celeb.
All this ain’t good news for celebrities, as not only might Twitter make them look vacuous and dull, but the fact that it’s known that there are real celebs on the site means it’s more likely people are going to be taken in by the numerous fakes. A celebrity’s every tweet is in danger of being misconstrued and turned into a headline, or they could inadvertently become the BBC’s main celebrity response to David Carradine’s death.
In fact with all these downsides, you wonder why celebrities tweet at all. However the allure of a platform where celebrities feel they can talk directly to people without the media filtering, altering and editing what they say is understandable.
While controlling a celebrity’s image has always been an important part of the entertainment industry, it does mean that famous people live in the strange position of being known by millions, while none of those people really know them at all. Twitter becomes a way for them to be able to stand up and say, ‘This is me’, but in a seemingly safe way.
The danger of standing up and saying ‘This is me’ is, of course, that people may turn round and say, ‘Well, you’re an idiot’ (which people seem to like saying to Ashton Kutcher whether he’s been tweeting or not).
It’s also true that the idea of Twitter being unfiltered communication is still an illusion, because ultimately people sign up to follow the movie star, singer, TV presenter or other celeb, not the real person behind the fame. Followers of MrsKutcher (Demi Moore) want her tweets because she’s the star of A Few Good Men and Indecent Proposal, not because she’s a divorced, 40-something, working mother of three.
The fact famous people have thousands of Twitter followers due to their status and not their actual ability to say anything of worth, means the whole thing is in danger of becoming a big ego trip, especially if they start to believe their own hype (how can a million followers be wrong?).
Famous people may think they’re able to use Twitter to talk about the 'real me' and the truth about their lives, but it’s not on equal terms. The person is putting out tweets but the followers are listening to the star (a pitfall many come up against if they ever try to talk about the downsides of fame, which normally results in them getting bombarded with messages about being ungrateful and stuck up).
And ultimately, we all might end up with a healthier attitude to celebrity and fame if Kevin Smith wasn’t our ‘friend’, if Demi Moore wasn’t sending us messages, and if a random tweet can’t become the BBC’s response to a death. But even we have to admit, it is all kinda fun.
