Are Celebrities Destroying Twitter?

By Deanna Zandt, AlterNet. Posted April 27, 2009.

So, why no love for Ashton and the Oprah?  

One big no-no of social media spheres, besides blatant inauthenticity, is what I like to call shameful self-promotion. Social media rely heavily on some key principles of social capital, one being a version of karma that says you’re a better user for sharing useful information, not just promoting yourself. Kutcher’s stunts with CNN and Oprah’s arrival smack of signing up not to join in the fun, but to appropriate it make the fun theirs. 

Not to mention the hubbub around ghostwriters for celebrities on Twitter. No one summed that silliness up better than Shaq himself: "It’s 140 characters. It’s so few characters. If you need a ghostwriter for that, I feel sorry for you." 

The upshot of all this is that the exposure social media services like Twitter are receiving as a result of all the celebrity brouhaha is a Good Thing™ for the progressive media agenda. 

No, really! 

Here’s the thing: Media and all their trappings have long been the purview of upper-class straight white guys. That’s who has largely been determining which stories are important and telling them for as long as anyone can remember. Independent media have made inroads in the last century, but with the rise of social media, people are beginning to connect and share information in ways that were previously impossible.  

The more people we have participating in public discourse of any kind, the better it is for a populist agenda that represents and speaks to the needs of everyday folks. Look at what happened with Amazon when it accidentally removed 58,000 books from its Web site -- social media enthusiasts came along and called them out on it. Imagine how long that might’ve taken, and through how many gatekeepers it would have had to pass, in 1999. Thanks to enough progressive folk participating in social media, LBGT, feminist and sexual-health books were restored to the site within hours, if not a few days. 

So, if Oprah wants to talk about her workout, and Ashton wants to stunt his way along to millions of pieces of meaningless chatter, let them. You don’t have to follow them. But you should think about getting on board and talking about what’s important to you.

Editor's note: Check out AlterNet's Twitter feed here.

Deanna's note: If you're new to Twitter, consider reading two guides I've written: "Why Twitter, Anyways?" and  "A Non-fanatical Beginner's Guide to Twitter"

See more stories tagged with: twitter, oprah, ashton kutcher, social media

Deanna Zandt is a contributing editor at AlterNet.

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