There are two karmic aspects to this. The first is that I was alerted to the article by Nick Burcher's Twitter. The second is that the Daily Mail, as they appear to quite a lot, seem to have missed the point.
The offending Daily Mail article, which focusses on Jonathan Ross, Stephen Fry, John Cleese and Will Carling, decries the fact that the stars only post 'mundane' facts about their lives. They aren't the ones who need to get a life.
If the tweetings of the likes of Ross are so banal, how do they make for actual 'news' in the likes of the Mirror? What is mundane about the exotic travels of Stephen Fry and the opportunity to read nuggets of hilarity from under-exposed legends of comedy such as Fry and Cleese, who recently tweeted thus:
some people spout complete twaddle. they could be spouting incomplete twaddle and leaving the remaining twaddle for us. thoughtless!
There is no doubt that these chaps are using Twitter as a genuine means of expression and engagement on a public level to a select audience. Fry is accomodating in following those who follow him, while Ross, relatively new to the site, has only just worked out how to post direct replies (he's not the only one - it took me ages). Richard Branson is very active in promoting what he's up to, while Andy Murray posts news of his impossibly gruelling Miami training regime and the post-victory bets that resulted in the man who beat Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in successive matches going to dinner with his clothes inside out.
I decided, through my lust for celebrity gossip (I'm only half joking), to have a hunt for other famous names one might expect to have got involved in Twitter. Sure enough, Lily Allen had a go at Twitter. She hasn't touched it for 18 months though. I reckon she might suddenly hit the trail when she starts promoting her new album in earnest though.
Russell Brand's on Twitter too, with a big statement of intent, but only the one tweet back in September. He probably got sidetracked by something.
At least Brand and Allen tried to do things in the right spirit. Twitter is littered with celebrities who have clearly been put on by publicists and who post little more than details of upcoming gigs and appearances. Bow your heads in shame Jimmy Carr and Frankie Boyle, as well as XFM, who appear to have put all their DJs on Twitter and then forgotten to crack the whip on the likes of Alex Zane and Dave Berry since synchronised early efforts back in March.
The real value on Twitter is in finding the gems that are the fake celebrities. I've been sorely tempted to create my own fake, but concerned about the legal implications. Marina Hyde's landmark victory over Elton John notwithstanding, it's still fairly dodgy ground. Particularly when you come to see some of the fairly racy stuff that goes on the fake celebrity Twitter profiles and that Kanye West made Twitter shut down a fake version of himself.
I'll be posting a series of fake celebrity Twitter profiles for your delectation with samples of some of their absolute genius, and how some of them have hopelessly undermined themselves.
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