Anything that a celebrity does seems to be out in the public's eye. Their personal business is our entertainment. Nothing is private. And with the introduction of new social media, they are the main source for topics of conversation. Bloggers, Tweeters, Facebookers alike, talk about celebs and their offline lives as well as what the celebs post online. This is much like the tabloids such as the National Enquirer and People Magazine. Where celebrities go, fans follow. I like to call this the Ashton Kutcher Effect, as do a lot of people. When someone famous starts using a web site, their fans start using it too. This is just like when celebrities wore something it became trendy but now it has passed on to the digital, technological age. Douglas MacMillan explains:
“Twitter co-founder Biz Stone credits high-profile users like actor Ashton Kutcher and basketball pro Shaquille O'Neal for bringing attention to the site of 140-character messages but says the company doesn't reserve any "special resources" for them. "Sometimes celebrities who love Twitter stop by and say hello," Stone says. "It's usually just a quiet tour and a lunchtime chat but it's really fun for us."”
And Twitter isn’t the only social networking site that has used celebrities to up their status. John Legend, a Grammy winning R & B singer, has a Tumblr site that brought a ton of people to that certain social networking site.
Foursquare, the site that lets you “follow” people around, kind of creepy and I call it stalkerish, was made famous by celebrities like DJ Pauly D from the MTV show Jersey Shore. The reason I say it is like stalking is because foursquare users check in at different locations and it posts wherever they are online for anyone to see and creep on them (I know, sort of a technological determinist view). I'm sure Danielle used this site to track down Pauly D at the bar and mean mug him the whole night only to throw water on his face later.
The reason these celebrities endorse these social media sites is because there is money to be made. In fact, there is A LOT of money in endorsements and digital advertising.
““We are pioneering the celebrity endorsement market in digital media, tapping the $50 billion spend on endorsements worldwide as well as the $35 billion spent in digital advertising," comments Ad.ly CE Arnie Gullov-Sing to Online Media Daily.”
And the reason this works? A lot of people like keeping up with the Joneses’. This is like that, only digital. People will join a certain social network site to feel more like the celebrities everyone idolizes. But on the social determinism side of things, celebrities are benefitting off of these new technologies as they should be. It makes us, the consumer, feel as if we don’t need the middle man to write about the celebrities’ everyday lives anymore. They can just tweet it to us themselves!
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| Ashton Kutcher's Twitter account |
Tweet of the day:
aplusk ashton kutcher
Can you have lunch at dinner?
Mr. Bolin, let me start by saying nice work! I couldn't agree more on what you have to say on your topic! I have noticed myself that anytime you turn the channel to "E" or other entertainment celebrity channels, it seems like it will take less than thirty seconds before you hear about "Kim Kardashian tweeted this", or "Lindsay Lohan denies this on twitter". Personally, I don't have a Twitter account and don't have a desire for one. But its very apparent that it's in incredibly popular form of social media!
ReplyDeleteAlso, great choice of celebrities for your topic! As everyone knows, Jersey shore is huge and including this in your blog will create more attention! Great use of multi-media overall. The one thing i suggest for future reference is to make sure your blog reaches the allotted length reguirements!
I think this is a really interesting topic and blog post. I think alot of people find themselves following celebrities much more because social networking has made it easier to do.
ReplyDeleteYou had alot of good links in this post.This really helps the reader to expand on the topic and understand it even better. Although the Jersey Shore clip was quite entertaining, I think you could have used a better video to illustrate and support the whole blog post rather than just this little part, especially becuase you are only assuming this girl used the site to track this guy down. Also, just continue to watch your overall writing and make sure your sentences are complete and concise.
Isaac - Good topic, it was nice to narrow it down to how celebrities affect trends just by tweeting about them. The other social media sites can add to this but I'm sure Twitter/Facebook is probably the largest contributer. I actually signed up for an account just to follow Ellen and Chelsea Handler, but have since forgotten my username and password.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting topic that could stem from this is the "psuedo-friendships" we talked about in class. How people use social media to keep up with friends and even though we don't see or actually talk to them for weeks and months but, thanks to things like Twitter, are able to know exactly what is happening in their lives. The same concept applies to celebrities. Many people feel as though they develop a friendship with a celebrity because they invest so much time online getting to know them and keeping up with them, but that same investment is not returned. I've actually seen this happen when I interned at a radio station listeners would approach radio personalities and say "Hey, its me, ________ I listen to you guys every morning and text the mobile militia all the time!" but of course the radio person would have no idea who they were. Its an interesting phenomenon.