Alice Marwick and Danah Boyd’s “To See and Be Seen: Celebrity Practice on Twitter” was right up my alley. I’ve been addicted to Twitter for the past year, and this article touched on a lot of the key points as to why I find myself coming back to Twitter.
It really is the most narcissistic tool on the internet. You’re just constantly updating it with your thoughts, daily habits, and what entertains you. It gives a person a sense of self importance. When you get more followers, it makes you think “Oh, wow. This person wants to follow me”.
But the best part about Twitter is the celebrity interaction. And Marwick and Danah Boyd are right when they say “Twitter creates a new expectation of intimacy.” (156)
I always see people (myself included) tweeting at celebrity’s in hopes of a reply. And the best part is, a lot of celebrity’s respond. They like the attention just as much as your Average Joe (Zorzi). My roommate once tweeted Khloe Kardashian and she responded, attacking him. He was then met with tons of responses from a fair amount of her 5 million + followers.
The fact that people can connect with their favorite entertainers gives them a feeling of belonging and allows these entertainers to be seen as regular people.
Although I see it as a really fun and important tool to connect with others, people really do put up more information than they probably should. Celebrities and the everyday working man both tend to write a lot of things that the rest of the world really don’t need to know about. When you’re writing under 140 characters, you may think you’re not giving away a lot of information about yourself. But if someone looked back at all of your past tweets and conversations with others, they could find out a lot about you. Probably more than you realize or want.
But in this day and age, it seems like everyone’s private lives are out in the open. As long as the playing field is level and we’re all in the same boat I’m not too worried about it.
Here are some screenshots of some of my entertainers responses to me:
Jason Tate (founder of AbsolutePunk.net), Mars (Hip-Hop Producer), The Ataris (Radical Band)
