Nichols: Twittering stars take fun out of celebrity

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Last week, Grammy-winning singer Erykah Badu gave birth to a healthy baby girl. Of course, if you’re one of Badu’s 4,000 followers on Twitter, you already knew that the moment it happened.

Badu and her boyfriend Twittered the whole thing, from labor to crowning. As a result, Twitter, that perfect marriage of consensual invasion of privacy and short attention spans, has evolved into a broadcast venue for the play-by-play of pivotal and extremely personal moments in the lives of famous people.

One bittersweet aspect of Web 2.0 is that celebrities, what with their MySpaces and WordPress blogs and Twitters, have less mystique than ever before. Sure, it’s cool to be able to read about Kanye West’s trip to Paris on his blog or interact with Jim Gaffigan on his Facebook.

But at the same time, much of what made famous people so cool — separation — is now almost completely gone. They talk to us on the same level, like we’re equals. They congregate at the same places on the Internet that we do; there’s no more VIP section to daydream about entering.

Clearly, had Twitter been handed down from heaven along with the Ten Commandments, it would have completely removed the mystery associated with so many celebrities of the past. Who would want to imagine that?

Me, that’s who. Here are some excerpts I dug up from Twitter accounts gone-by.

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mo’ money, mozart: putting the final touches on #13... this serenade is gonna rock your shit! 17:87 from web

— anybody got a few bucks I could borrow? 17:89 from web

— in Prague... this place is tight! 17:91 from txt

— have you ever gotten a rash that just won’t go away? 17:91 from web

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honest abe: @SouthCarolina: don’t even THINK about it 18:60 from web

— @SouthCarolina: oh it’s on 18:60 from web

— brb, emancipatin’ the slaves 18:62 from web

— glad that war’s over, time to take in a play with the wifey 18:65 from web

***

Jack_the_Ripper: killed one Aug. 31 from web

— killed another one Sep. 8 from web

— killed two more! Sep. 30 from web

— out for tea... Oct. 15 from txt

— aaaand killed another one. Nov. 9 from web

***

neil not louie: earth looks crazy from up here... check out the pix on my Flickr July 18 from space

— @Houston: eagle has landed, btw July 20 from moon

— one small step for man... one giant leap for mankind July 21 from moon

— *a man July 21 from moon

— Nichols is an Overland Park sophomore in creative writing.

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Nichols: Twittering stars take fun out of celebrity

One one sends updates twitter, it's called a "tweet."