As I looked at the clock reading 10.35am and took a sip of my 4th strong black cup of coffee and began feeling the twinges of restlessness and an overwhelming need to go to the bathroom again, I began questioning why I was looking at this post?
“Raining in La- this is not the deal. London has snow. SNOW! This better be Hollywood rain that tastes of lemonade and gives superpowers.”
This beautifully articulate and charmingly smug utterance is from none other than the delightfully articulate, intelligent and hilarious Russel Brand (@rustyrockets). I’m not ashamed – though perhaps I should be – that he is one of many celebrities that I ‘follow’ on good old Twitter. Yet I found myself becoming alarmingly jealous. I have never necessarily felt jealous of celebrities before, admirable and appreciative of their work yes, but not jealous. So as I sat there, blood boiling, eyes turning green I began to ask myself whether it is healthy for social networking to allow us constant updates on how exciting their lives might be when some of us are by the looks of things writing for our own eyes only.
Russel Brand and the others have at no point forced me to follow them, far from it in fact. He has absolutely no idea who I am - he has over 719,000 followers to my 32 – some of which probably don’t even know who I am anyway. I have replied to posts from Davina McCall, Fearne Cotton, Chris Moyles, Max Rushden, Jonathan Ross and good old RustyRockets, WHY? Is it some sort of desperate attempt for one of them to just put “@clutterances haha” so I can go to the pub and say, “Jonathan Ross found me funny today, what did you get up to?” – Maybe. Is it so that one of them might offer me a break into the entertainment industry by picking me out of the crowd and saying “You’ve got talent, have a job.” – Possibly. Is it because I, like so many others have to justify to myself that they’re not so different from us - just harder working and more talented? Undoubtedly. The press paints celebrities as aliens – although Lady Gaga might actually be one – yet in truth they’re definitely just people with jobs. Sure their jobs pay millions, they live in luxury, travel the world and have enough casual sex they could raise an army from aborted babies (Brand) but they also deserve it. I read Russel Brand’s Bookie Wook again this month and it is an excellent example of how focusing on what you want will result in your success, even if your focus is blurred from a concoction of heroin and hairspray. I imagine most celebrities will admit that a lucky break was certainly needed, but the difference is that because they knew what they wanted, they deserved it.
Twitter is a constant reminder of how much more successful you could have been, how relatively disappointing your own life is in comparison. This is an incredibly morbid realization of what Twitter can do - and I think myself an upbeat person, mind you Kerrie Katona thinks she’s thin – and therefore I question the healthiness of it. We’re constantly surrounded with celebrity gossip, television and all sorts of stories, so why insist on letting them dominate our social life too. Celebrities are not to blame in the slightest but why do I look? Why do I follow? Why do I care? WHY?! It seems that knowing what celebrities are doing is an addiction. Twitter is the dope fiend jacking celebrity toxins straight into your veins through your eyeballs and fingertips. Even the term ‘follow’ seems a bit filthy. It makes me feel like I am hiding in a dark corner somewhere with my pants round my ankles smelling like a computer and Twittering my little tweeter until my hands are raw, my eyes hurt, I have a headache and I can only offer one last status update before I fall into a deep, dirty slumber.
The fearful realization of this is when someone with bad intentions uses social networking to their advantage. Take this post from naughty little Russel Brand again:
“I just read that my tweets are the 3rd most influential in Britain. I will only use this power for good. Now send photos of your sex organs. “
I bet they did too.
Imagine if someone with less frivolous intentions than Russel Brand began being more and more influential? It is quite an alarming thought that social networking can truly have such an influence. I am willing to bet that it is only a matter of time before something bad is generated because of Twitter. I’m not sure the screening process of Twitter could work quickly enough to cull a threat when just with a celebrity retweet can turn your followers from “15 to over 200 followers in 5 minutes @trevorwesley” because of an endorsement from @rustyrockets.
So lets see whether following celebrities will help us, hinder us or hurt us in the future. 2010 could be an interesting year for social networking, it could reach new heights or could cause chaos. I guess we’ll have to sit back, watch and when it happens see whether in 140 characters we can generate a response from one of our favourite celebrities.
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